Sibelius Rakastava Program Notes This three-movement work for string orchestra, timpani and triangle, began life as an unaccompanied work for men’s choir, entered in the 1893 University of Helsinki choral competition. For a text, Sibelius chose three poems from the Kanteletar, a book of Finnish-language folk poetry collected by Elias Read more…
Weber Clarinet Concertino Program Notes Carl Maria von Weber was an innovator at the beginning of the Romantic era, an industrious and serious musician. His father had believed young Carl to be another child prodigy like Mozart, which led to a childhood of travel. Clearly he was very talented, Read more…
Britten The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell Program Notes Not too long after returning from Lenox, Massachusetts, where he’d workshopped his new opera Peter Grimes with the students at Tanglewood (and their young conductor, Leonard Bernstein), English composer Benjamin Britten was brought Read more…
Bartók Concerto for Orchestra Program Notes Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, one of the staples of 20th Century orchestral music, led to wide acceptance of Bartók’s music, following its premiere by the Boston Symphony Orchestra on December 1, 1944. The Concerto evokes the idea, first suggested by his friend and publisher Ralph Read more…