Music #439 - Other Composers of the Era

Kurt Weill
(1900 – 1950, German)

Weill held the ideal of writing music that served a socially useful purpose.

With Bertolt Brecht, he developed productions such as his best-known work Die Dreigroschenoper (The Threepenny Opera), a Marxist critique of capitalism, which included the ballad "Mack the Knife". 

* September Song

Alban Berg 
(1885 – 1935, Austrian)

H was a member of the Second Viennese School with Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern (see below).
                      
* Wozzeck opera
* String Quartet
* Lyric Suite
* Lulu
* Violin Concerto

Arnold Schoenberg
(1874 – 1951, Austrian)

Leader of the Second Viennese School. 

Schoenberg's approach, both in terms of harmony and development, is among the major landmarks of 20th-century musical thought.

* Verklärte Nacht
* Gurrelieder
* Chamber Symphony No. 1
* 3 piano pieces
* 5 orchestral pieces
* Pierrot Lunaire
* Moses und Aaron

Anton Webern
(1883 – 1945, Austrian)

A composer and conductor, he was a member of the Second Viennese School. 

As a student and significant follower of Arnold Schoenberg, he became one of the best-known exponents of the twelve-tone technique.

* Symphonie
* Concerto for Nine Instruments
* Cantata No. 1&2
* String Quartett
* Piano variations
* Variations for Orchestra

Charles Ives
(1874 – 1954, American)
He is one of the first American composers of international renown, though his music was largely ignored during his life. 

Over time, Ives came to be regarded as an "American original". He combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music, and was among the first composers to engage in experimental music.

* Holidays Symphony
* Central Park in the Dark
* Three Places In New England
* Variations on America
* Sonata No. 2 "Concord"

Percy Grainger
(1882 – 1961)

An Australian-born composer and pianist, Grainger played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century. 

He also made many adaptations of other composers' works. Although much of his work was experimental and unusual, the piece with which he is most generally associated is his piano arrangement of the folk-dance tune "Country Gardens".                                        

* The Warriors
* Handel in the Strand
* A Lincolnshire Posy



Carl Nielsen 
[kʰɑːl ˈnelsn̩]  (1865 – 1931)

Nielsen is widely recognized as Denmark's greatest composer.

Carl Nielsen is especially admired for his six symphonies, his Wind Quintet and his concertos for violin, flute and clarinet.

In Denmark, his opera Maskarade and a considerable number of his songs have become an integral part of the national heritage.      

Zoltán Kodály
[ˈkodaːj ˈzoltaːn]  (1882 – 1967)

A Hungarian composer, ethnomusicologist, pedagogue, linguist, and philosopher, he is best known internationally as the creator of the Kodály Method.

* Háry János Suite
* Dances of Galánta
* Concerto for Orchestra

Paul Hindemith  - top tracks
(1895 – 1963)

Hindesmith was a German-born American. 

His notable compositions include:
* opera Mathis der Maler / Matthias the Painter
* Das Marienleben / The Life of Mary - song cycle  for soprano and piano, based on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke.

Béla Bartók
[ˈbeːlɒ ˈbɒrtoːk]  (1881 – 1945)

'Bartok was the greatest Hungarian composer since Liszt. 
He and Kodaly put Hungary on the international musical map.'

Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, 
he was one of the founders of ethnomusicology 
-- the study of the music of the world.
* Concerto for Orchestra
* Duke Bluebeard's Castle



Leoš Janáček
[ˈlɛoʃ ˈjanaːt͡ʃɛk]  (1854 – 1928)

Considered one of the most important Czech composers, he was inspired by Moravian and all Slavic folk music to create an original, modern musical style.

Jenůfa  - often called the "Moravian national opera"
* finale
* 2-hour full version

Janáček's later works are his most celebrated:
* the symphonic poem Sinfonietta,

* the oratorio Glagolitic Mass  - Saints Cyril created Glagolitic alphabet for Orthodox bible,
* the rhapsody Taras Bulba,
* two string quartets,   No.1    No.2
* other chamber works and operas
          From the House of the Dead opera / Z mrtvého domu
          The Makropoulos Affair opera / Věc Makropulos



Frederick Delius 
(1862 – 1934)

An English composer.

A Village Romeo and Juliet   
* a full 2-hour version






Ferruccio Busoni
(1866 – 1924)

An Italian composer, pianist, editor, writer, piano and composition teacher, and conductor.

Arlecchino opera
* a 2-minute sample
* a full version

Doktor Faust opera
* a 3-minute sample

Music #438 - The King's Singers

The King's Singers  - top tracks
- Live at the BBC Proms

1. La Bell' Si Nous Étions - Francis Poulenc [1.13]
2. La Belle Se Sied Au Pied De La Tour - Francis Poulenc [1.34]
3. Clic, Clac, Dansez Sabots - Francis Poulenc [1.58]
4. Pilons L'orge - Francis Poulenc [0.42]
5. Ah! Mon Beau Laboureur - Francis Poulenc [3.34]
6. Les Tisserands - Francis Poulenc [1.56]
7. Scenes In America Deserta - John McCabe [14.11]
8. La Guerre - Clement Janequin [7.11]
9. Dessus Le Marche d'Arras - Orlande de Lassus [1.28]
10. Toutes Les Nuitz - Orlande de Lassus [3.00]
11. Il Est Bel Et Bon - Pierre Passereau [1.03]
12. Phillis Is My Only Joy - John William Hobbs [1.49]
13. The Little Green Lane - Trad. arr. S.E. Lovatt [2.05]
14. The Goslings - Frederick Bridge [2.47]
15. Greensleeves - Trad. arr. Bob Chilcott [3.11]
16. Blow Away The Morning Dew - Trad. arr. Gordon Langford [1.56]
17. The Turtle Dove - Trad. arr. Philip Lawson [3.30]
18. Widdicombe Fair - Trad. arr. Gordon Langford [3.42]
19. The Long Day Closes - Arthur Sullivan [4.22]

Music #436 - William Walton

William Walton  - top tracks 

(1902 – 1983)

Sir William Turner Walton OM was an English composer. During a sixty-year career, he wrote music in several genres and styles, from opera to film scores. 

Battle of Britain (1969) movie  - opening scenes         

Henry V (1944) movie  - Agincourt Song

His best-known works include 

* Façade  (a 3-minute sample)

* Belshazzar's Feast  (cantata)

* Viola Concerto

* First Symphony

Legends:
* Battle of Britain
* Henry V: Non Nobis and Te Deum
     - Non nobis, non nobis, Domine   /Not to us, not to us, O Lord/
       Sed nomini tuo da gloriam.   /But to thy name give glory./
* Façade (Front) – An Entertainment   
* In the story of Belshazzar's Feast, the Jews are in exile in Babylon. After a feast at which Belshazzar, the Babylonian king, commits sacrilege by using the Jews' sacred vessels to praise the heathen gods, he is miraculously killed, the kingdom falls, and the Jews regain their freedom.

Source: Wikipedia

Music #434 - Prokofiev

Sergei Prokofiev  - top tracks

/prəˈkɒfiɛv/  (1891 – 1953) 

A Russian composer, pianist and conductor who mastered numerous musical genres, Prokofiev is regarded as one of the major composers of the 20th century. 

His best-known works are 
* 5 piano concertos
* 9 completed piano sonatas
* 7 symphonies.


Piano Concert No.1

Martha Argerich & Alexandre Rabinovitch
at "Le festival de la Roque-d'Anthéron"
(an international piano festival) in 2005

War & Peace opera   

The Nazi invasion of the USSR spurred him to compose his most ambitious work, an operatic version of Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace.

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Besides many other works, Prokofiev also composed family favourites, such as 
* the March from The Love for Three Oranges, 
* the suite Lieutenant Kijé, 
* the ballet Romeo and Juliet,
* Peter and the Wolf.


Love for Three Oranges opera  

March by Itzhak Perlman

Lieutenant Kijé  
This score was composed for the 1934 Soviet film Lieutenant Kijé based on the novel of the same title.

* Mvt 3 of 5 Kijé's Wedding
* a full suite

Cinderella   

Paris Opera Ballet

Gambler opera

Staatskapelle Berlin

Romeo & Juliet

Based on Shakespeare's play, it is one of the most enduringly popular ballets. 
Music from the ballet was extracted by Prokofiev as three suites for orchestra and as a piano work.
Suite No.2 - Mvt 1 of 7 - Montagues and Capulets / Dance of the Knights

* orchestra version

* piano version - with score
* a full version

Peter and the Wolf  

(L) Vancouver Symphony Orchestra

 
(R) Disney Story

Source: Wikipedia

Music #433 - Stravinsky

Igor Stravinsky
(sometimes spelled Strawinsky or Stravinskii)
[ˌiɡərʲ ˌfʲjodɐrɐvʲɪtɕ strɐˈvʲinskʲɪj]  (1882 - 1971)

A Russian, and later French and American composer, he is considered one of the most important and influential composers of the 20th century.




He first achieved international fame with three ballets: 
* The Firebird
* Petrushka
* The Rite of Spring

Firebird / L'oiseau de feu
The Firebird ballet is based on Russian folk tales of the firebird that is both a blessing and a curse to its captor. 

* Infernal Dance to start of Finale
* Finale
* Ballet

Petrushka  
The ballet tells the story of a Russian traditional puppet Petrushka, who is made of straw and with a bag of sawdust as his body, but who comes to life and develops emotions. 
* Part 1   * Part 2   * Part 3 

The Rite of Spring
After various primitive rituals celebrating the advent of spring, a young girl is chosen as a sacrificial victim and dances herself to death. 
* Joffrey Ballet 1989








Source: Wikipedia

Music #432 - Barber

Samuel Barber 

(1910-1981)  

He is one of the most celebrated composers of the 20^th century.

An American, he was twice awarded the Pulitzer Prize for music, for
* opera Vanessa
* Concerto for Piano and Orchestra.

Also widely performed is his Knoxville: Summer of 1915, a work for soprano and orchestra.

His Adagio for Strings has earned a permanent place in the concert repertory of orchestras. 

Source: Wikipedia

Adagio for Strings - String Quartet No.1 Mvt 2

This music piece can be solemn, 

* as sung with mass prayer Agnus Dei (Lamb of God) in Latin

It can be light and heavy: 

* heavy metals added to light it up, and to speed it up!

* digitized

It can be a sad requiem L.  
Besides the funeral of President FD Roosevelt, it was performed in ...

* mourning the deaths in 911

* trailer theme in the Platoon movie 

* end theme in the Elephant Man movie 
   - “I am not an animal! I am a human being! 
        I … am … a man!”  Good grief!

Music #431 - Gershwin

George Gershwin  - a story of Gershwin 

(1898 – 1937)

Gershwin is an American composer and pianist. His compositions spanned both popular and classical genres. 

Among his best known works are the orchestral compositions:
* Rhapsody in Blue
* An American in Paris
* Porgy and Bess.

Rhapsody in Blue 

“... a musical composition for solo piano and jazz band, which combines elements of classical music with jazz-influenced effects.” 
  
* Melodica concerto version from the Nodame Cantabile series

* Piano concerto  - Leonard Bernstein on piano & conducting

An American in Paris   

“... a symphonic composition inspired by time Gershwin had spent in Paris.”

* Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra 

* I got rhythm in the An American in Paris (film) - Gene Kelly.   

Porgy and Bess  
"... tells the story of Porgy, a disabled black beggar living in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina. He attempted to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her violent and possessive lover, and Sportin' Life, the drug dealer."

* Summertime
* AGT
* 15 songs in a movie made 

Source: Wikipedia

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Extra: 
Gene Kelly tap dancing on roller skates in one film.

Music #430 - Copland

Aaron Copland 

[KOPE-land]  (1900-1990)
   
An American, he was instrumental in forging a distinctly American style of composition. In his later years he was often referred to as "the Dean of American Composers"

Works include 
* the ballets Appalachian Spring, Billy the Kid and Rodeo
* Third Symphony
* Fanfare for the Common Man

Source: Wikipedia

Fanfare for the Common Man  

This fanfare has only percussion & brass sections.

* Composed to motivate Americans during WW2. 

* It was played to motivate Americans after 911.

Simple Gifts  
by an elder of the Shakers, a Christian division in USA

Hancock Shaker Village

- This former Shaker commune emerged in the towns of Hancock, Pittsfield, and Richmond in the 1780s, organized in 1790, and was active until 1960.

- An independent non-profit organization now operates the property as an open-air museum.

- Hancock, Massachusetts (USA)

Centre Family Dwelling House

- Micajah Burnett (1791-1879) & Moses Johnson (1752-1842), 1824-34

- Pleasant Hill, Kentucky (USA)

* It was a dancing song/hymn in the Shakers' chapel  (with lyrics) 

Copland made this melody well-known by borrowing it into section 7 (of 8) of his Appalachian Spring ballet suite.  
* Simple Gifts in Appalachian Spring


The Appalachian ["appa-LATSCH-en"] Mountains 
(brown in color on map) run among the 13 Atlantic states and Louisiana. 

Music #429 - Poulenc et "Les Six"

Francis Poulenc   - top tracks
[fʁɑ̃sis pulɛ̃k]
(1899 – 1963)

A French composer, Poulenc composed various genres of music.  
He was a member of the French group Les Six (see below).







* Les biches / Female Deer  - a ballet with chorus and jazz idioms

* Les chemins de l'amour / The Ways of Love - one of his most popular songs

* Les mamelles de Tirésias / The Breasts of Tirésias

* La voix humaine / The Human Voice

* Sinfonietta (pour orchestre) - light and full of dance rhythms

Les Six   - top tracks
Les Six [le sis] is a name given in 1920 to a group of six French composers working in Montparnasse. Their music is often seen as a reaction against the musical style of Richard Wagner and the impressionist music of Claude Debussy and Maurice Ravel.

The six members were: 
* Georges Auric,
* Louis Durey,
* Arthur Honegger,
* Darius Milhaud,
* Francis Poulenc,
* Germaine Tailleferre.

Source: Wikipedia

Music #417 - Holst

Gustav Holst  

(1874 - 1934)

An English composer, Holst is most famous for his orchestral suite The Planets.
 
The suite has 7 movements, each of which is named after a planet (other than Earth) of the Solar System and its corresponding astrological character as defined by Holst.   

Source: Wikipedia

Digital, or Prom 90
* Mars, the Bringer of War
* Venus, the Bringer of Peace
* Mercury, the Winged Messenger
* Jupiter, the Bringer of Jollity
* Saturn, the Bringer of Old Age
* Uranus, the Magician
* Neptune, the Mystic

Music #416 - Williams

Ralph Vaughan Williams  - top tracks
/ˌreɪf ˌvɔːn ˈwɪliəmz/  (1872 – 1958)

My Lady Greensleeves

An English composer and a collector of English folk music and song, Williams composed an orchestral piece in 1934 entitled 
* Fantasia on Greensleeves 
In it, the tune of Greensleeves alternates with that of Lovely Joan. 

Both are traditional English folk songs and tunes.
* Greensleeves with lyrics 
* Lovely Joan - lyrics
  
   

Anne Boleyn & Henry VIII

There is a persistent belief that Greensleeves was composed by Henry VIII for his lover and future queen consort Anne Boleyn. 

Boleyn allegedly rejected King Henry's attempts to seduce her and this rejection may be referred to in the song when the writer's love "cast me off discourteously". 

Yet, Henry did not compose "Greensleeves",which is probably Elizabethan in origin and is based on an Italian style of composition that did not reach England until after his death.

Source: Wikipedia

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Partsongs  

* Three Shakespeare Songs - music by Williams, words by Shakespeare:  
   1. Full Fathom Five - The Tempest (Act 1 scene 2)
   2. The Cloud-Capp'd Towers - The Tempest (Act IV scene 1)
   3. Over Hill, Over Dale - A Midsummer Night's Dream (Act II scene 1)

A Midsummer Night's Dream

* Loch Lomond / The Bonnie Banks o' Lake Lomond   
   - traditional Scottish, arranged by Williams

Music #414 - Scriabin

Alexander Scriabin  - top tracks
/skriˈæbɪn/ Алекса́ндр Никола́евич Скря́бин
(1872 – 1915)

* His early work is characterised by a lyrical and idiosyncratic tonal language influenced by Frédéric Chopin.

* Later in his career, Scriabin developed a substantially atonal and much more dissonant musical system.

* Scriabin was influenced by synesthesia, and associated colors with the various harmonic tones of his atonal scale.

* A Russian composer and pianist, he is considered by some to be the main Russian Symbolist composer.

Source: Wikipedia

Mysterium 

Selections for Solo Piano

Prometheus / Poem of Fire

Le poème de l'extase / The Poem of Ecstasy