Felix Mendelssohn Variations Concertantes Op. 17 Felix was not the only musician in the Mendelssohn family. His older sister Fanny Mendelssohn Hensel (1805-1847) was a prodigiously talented pianist and composer, although she chose marriage over a public career, and his … Continue reading
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Program Notes: The Danish String Quartet
Posted onJohann Sebastian Bach Well-Tempered Clavier II Fugue No. 7 in E-flat major BWV 876 (arr. Mozart) In 1782 Mozart’s patron, Baron Gottfried van Swieten, showed the composer a number of manuscripts of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach and encouraged … Continue reading
Program Notes: Ksenija Sidorova
Posted onThe Concert Accordion Early Beginnings The accordion has for centuries been associated with music of a light or popular nature. Its portability, full harmonic texture and penetrating, reedy timbre have made it the ideal mini-orchestra for country dances and … Continue reading
Program Notes: Ian Bostridge with Wenwen Du
Posted onGustave Mahler Three Des Knaben Wunderhorn Songs The collection of German folk poetry published between 1805 and 1808 under the title Des Knaben Wunderhorn (The Youth’s Magic Horn) had an enormous influence on the development of German lyric poetry and … Continue reading
Program Notes: Bryn Terfel
Posted onIdris Lewis Cân yr arad goch (Ceiriog) The Welsh poet John Hughes (1832-1887), who took the bardic name Ceiriog, is known as the “Robert Burns of Wales.” Like the great Scottish poet, he sought to express his love for his … Continue reading
Program Notes: Schubertiade Performance Three
Posted onSonata in A major D959 Schubert’s penultimate piano sonata was one of three written in the summer of 1828, just months before his death. This is a pianistically challenging work of unusually wide emotional range. Its moods run the gamut … Continue reading
Program Notes: Schubertiade Perfomance Two
Posted onFantasie in F minor for piano four hands D940 Schubert’s Fantasie in F minor for piano duet, composed in 1828, is similar in structure to the composer’s ‘Wanderer’ Fantasy of 1822. Both are laid out in one continuous movement of … Continue reading
Program Notes: Schubertiade Performance One
Posted onSonata in C minor D958 Of the three last sonatas Schubert wrote just before his death in 1828, it is the Sonata in C minor that most reveals him as Beethovenian, not just in his choice of key, synonymous with … Continue reading
Program Notes: Mark Padmore & Paul Lewis
Posted onThe age of the German lied, an art-song for solo voice with piano accompaniment, extends from the first songs of Schubert (1814) to the last songs of Hugo Wolf (1897). Its emergence in the early part of the 19th century … Continue reading
Program Notes: Brown-Urioste-Canellakis Trio
Posted onFranz Joseph Haydn Piano Trio in F sharp minor, Hob. XV/26 Haydn’s piano trios are really just accompanied piano sonatas, with the cello doubling the bass line and the violin the melody on top. Such a stylistically regressive texture, so … Continue reading