Anthony Mosakowski Concert Overture Program Notes It’s always exciting to introduce a piece of music to an audience for the first time, especially a work like Anthony Mosakowski’s Concert Overture, with its great energy, artistry, sense of melody and craft. The Overture, for an orchestra of single winds, varied percussion, harp, piano Read more…
Ann Wyeth McCoy A Christmas Fantasy Program Notes A young Ann Wyeth composed this piece and, aged 19, entered it in a competition for young composers held by the Philadelphia Orchestra. It was premiered the next December, conducted by music director Leopold Stokowski. Ann’s father N.C. Wyeth first came from Read more…
Beethoven Egmont Overture Program Notes We can’t appropriate Beethoven’s exact politics (although thousands have tried), but we can be certain he identified with the concept of freedom (setting Schiller’s Ode to Joy, with its defeat to the lying brood of undeserving crowns). Egmont is no exception, Beethoven enthusiastically writing incidental music Read more…
Duke Ellington Harlem Program Notes Duke Ellington’s prolific composing and performing career led to approximately 1000 works, such as songs “Take the A-Train,” “Caravan,” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” as well as some longer works, including tone-poems, and fascinating “Swinging Suites,” jazz versions of both Grieg’s Peer Gynt incidental Read more…
Dukas La Péri Fanfare Program Notes In Persian mythology, a Péri, like the Western folkloric Fairy, has a morally ambiguous position: its magical powers can be used for positive ends or otherwise. For the 1911 Paris season of the Ballets Russes, Serge Diaghilev commissioned Dukas to compose a fantastical one-act Read more…
Copland Fanfare for the Common Man Program Notes Aaron Copeland wrote Fanfare for the Common for the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra Music Director Eugene Goosen’s 1942-43 season, when commissioned as part of 18 concert-opening fanfares. Copeland, having finished the fanfare, took some time to consider a title. Early thoughts Read more…
Emmanuel Chabrier España Program Notes Born: January 18, 1841; Ambert, Puy-de-Dôme, France Died: September 13, 1894; Paris, France French composer Emmanuel Chabrier settled down to a career working as a public servant, working for 18 years as a legal official for the Ministry of the Interior. He had a Read more…
César Franck Symphony in D Program Notes Cesar Franck was born in the French-speaking part of Belgium. The young Franck exhibited great talent in early studies at the Liege Conservatory, so his father, a clerk, moved the family to Paris to enable his piano, organ and composition studies at the Paris Read more…
Carl Busch Minniehah’s Vision Program Notes Taught by two of its founders, Nils Gade and Johan Hartmann, Carl Busch attended the Royal Danish Academy of Music in Copenhagen. He would have known Carl Nielsen (1865-1931), three years his junior. After additional studies (Brussels and Paris), Busch moved to the United Read more…
Brahms Symphony No. 2 Program Notes Johannes Brahms was a child of Hamburg, growing up near the great shipping port of Northern German. He maintained a lifelong fascination with shipping schedules, and other organizational minutiae. Following the path advised by his ill-fated mentor, Robert Schumann, he wound up in Read more…