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The Art of Fugue Fugue is the Rubik’s cube of compositional genres. It’s the sort of thing that only the ‘brainiest’ of modern composers, one with a bent for antiquarian curiosities, would attempt. And yet in its golden age in … Continue reading
By Christian Gerhaher This programme of poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe set to music by Franz Schubert and Wolfgang Rihm was conceived as a tribute to the eight great poetic hymns written during the poet’s Sturm und Drang period … Continue reading
Eugène Ysaÿe Sonata for solo violin in G minor, Op. 27, No. 1 Belgian violinist and composer Eugène Ysaÿe stands as a bridge figure between the late Romantic era of virtuoso violinists such as Henri Vieuxtemps and Henryk Wieniawski (he studied … Continue reading
Franz Schubert Impromptus Op. 90, Nos. 1-4 The impromptu is just one of a number of small-scale instrumental genres arising in the early 19th century, known under the collective title of “character pieces”. Cultivated by composers of the Romantic … Continue reading
Ludwig van Beethoven Sonata for cello & piano in C major, Op. 102, No. 1 Those who think of sonata form as a well-organized dinner plate – with the red meat in one corner, the mashed potatoes stationed opposite, and … Continue reading
Franz Schubert Sonatina for violin & piano in A minor D. 385 It humbles me to think, paraphrasing Tom Lehrer, that when Schubert was my age, he had already been dead for several decades. Lest I forget, there are his … Continue reading
The golden age of English lute song coincides with the public career of lutenist and composer John Dowland – and not by chance: from the publication of his First Booke of Songes in 1597 until his death in 1626, … Continue reading
CONCERT #1 Johannes Brahms String Quartet in C minor, Op. 51, No. 1 If there was one great figure in European music that Brahms revered more than any other, that figure was Ludwig van Beethoven. With the Great Master’s bust … Continue reading
Igor Stravinsky Suite Italienne At the end of the Great War Igor Stravinsky underwent a radical shift in his compositional techniques and aesthetic aims. Gone were the gargantuan orchestras that had performed the lush, colorful scores of his pre-War ballets … Continue reading
Ludwig van Beethoven: Sonata in A flat, Op. 26 Beethoven begins to move away from the norms of the classical tradition in this unconventional four-movement sonata without a single movement in traditional sonata- allegro form. It opens with a noble, … Continue reading
