Robbn Orr (Scottish 1909-2006)

Robin Orr (1909 - 2006) - Full biography

Robin Orr was born in Scotland in 1909 where he lived until he was 25. After studying at the Royal College of Music, at Cambridge University (Organ Scholar at Pembroke College) and with Casella (in Italy) and Nadia Boulanger (in France), he moved to Cambridge, where he has spent most of his professional life. He was Organist and Director of Musicf at St John's College from 1938 to 1951, interrupted by war service in the RAFVR. From 1947 to 1956 he held a University Lectureship and was also a professor at the RCM. The next nine years were spent in Glasgow wher ehe was the first full-time Professor of Music at the University and became the first Chairman of Scottish Opera, an appointment he held for 15 years. He was Professor of Music at Cambridge from 1965 to 1976 (now Emeritus). During that time he made himself responsible for the new Music Faculty buildings, including raising the necessary funds for a first-class concert hall. For many years he was a Trustee of the Carl Rosa Opera and was a director of Welsh National Opera from 1977 to 1982. He is a Mus. D. of Cambridge, an Honorary Fellow of St John's and Pembroke Colleges, Hon. Mus. D. of Glasgow and LLD of Dundee, and was made CBE in 1972. Since retirement from academic work, he has spent much time with his wife in her native Switzerland. He was given Swiss nationality in 1995 and became a member of the Association Suisse des Musiciens in 1997.
Robin Orr's compositions include three commissioned operas: Full Circle (by Scottish Television for Scottish Opera in 1967, followed by four other separate productions); Hermiston (by Scottish Opera for the Edinburgh Festival in 1975); and On the Razzle (by the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in 1988). He has also written three symphonies that attracted the devoted support of Sir Alexander Gibson and Norman del Mar. The first, In One Movement, has been performed at the Edinburgh Festival, the London Proms and more than 60 other events worldwide; it was also recorded by HMV. The third, commissioned for the Llandaff Festival in 1978, was taken up in Scotland and most recently had an English premiere in Cambridge conducted by Stephen Cleobury. The Sinfonietta Helvetica (BBC commission) was premiered in Glasgow (1991), recognising the 700th anniversary of the founding of the Swiss Confederation. Orr has written several works for voice and strings: From the Book of Philip Sparrow (Janet Baker with the SNO 1969 and ECO 1971) and Journeys and Places (Glasgow University 1971) performed in Cambridge in 1984 by Sally Burgess and the Endellion String Quartet with Chi-Chi-Nwanoku. The Endellion (with tenor and oboe) recently performed Four Romantic Songs (commissioned by Peter Pears in 1949).
Chamber and church music are an important part of his creative work. Songs of Zion (on texts from four of the Psalms) was commissioned for the St Asaph Festival in 1978 and first performed by Stephen Wilkinson with the BBC Northern Singers. It was performed at the Zurich June Festival in 1986 and subsequently recorded for Nimbus by George Guest and St John's College Choir. There have been a number of performances in Switzerland of the Rhapsody for Strings (1956), most notably by the Zurcher Kammerorchester and the Camerata Bern; the Rhapsody has also been performed many times in Britain, by the ECO, SNO and the City of London Sinfonia. In 1998 Robin Orr's autobiography Musical Chairs was published (by Thames Publishing). His latest work is a commission from the BBC for a piece to preceded the Monteverdi Vespers, with the BBC Singers under Stephen Cleobury, premiered in Kings College Chapel on 6 August, 1999 and recorded as part of the 'Sounding the Millennium'.

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Rued Langaard (Denmark-1893-1952)

Thanks to Paul Dirmeikis for this beautifull work of art http://www.dirmeikis.org/

The child prodigy

Rued Langgaard was born on 28th July 1893 in Copenhagen.
His parents were Siegfried Langgaard, the pianist, composer and philosopher of music, and the pianist Emma Langgaard.
Art with a capital A was the order of the day in his childhood home, which was also permeated by deep religious feeling. Langgaard's parents felt themselves to be aristocrats in the realm of Art, and they viewed developments in musical life with scepticism.
Rued - his name was originally Rud, but he changed the spelling in 1932 - proved to be unusually musically gifted.With the talent he had been granted, his parents considered their child nothing less than 'God's gift to mankind'. So Rued was brought up to serve 'true' art.
It was a solitary childhood, in which young Langgaard's artistic development was the be-all and end-all. He did not go to school, but was taught at home by private tutors, and his musical education was guided with a firm hand by his parents.
It was only in the summer, when the Langgaard family holidayed at the idyllic fishing hamlet of Arild on Kullen (Sweden), that Rued had the chance to be a child and to be with children his own age. This was a sanctuary where he had a good opportunity to draw and paint, and in this area - as in music - he had a decided natural talent.
In March 1905 the 11-year-old Rued Langgaard performed for the first time in public on the organ, and shortly afterwards he gave a concert of his own at the Marmorkirken in Copenhagen. It was his amazing talent for improvisation that made a particular impression. Among the audience was Edvard Grieg, who in his enthusiasm immediately wrote a letter to the boy's mother.
Symphonist in the grand style
Rued Langgaard made his official debut as a composer in March 1908 with a large-scale work, Musae Triumphantes. The shy young composer was acclaimed by the public, but the press called the work immature and uncommitted.
Langgaard wanted to show his mettle, and three years later the then 17-year-old composer was ready with his gigantic First Symphony. But neither Copenhagen nor Stockholm felt able to perform it. The work was in fact extraordinarily demanding, but behind the rejection one glimpses the unwillingness of the musical establishment to support the young Promethean.
In the years 1908-13 Rued Langgaard was in Berlin every winter with his parents. There he heard lots of music, and Rued studied all the scores he could get hold of. And in Berlin he encountered interest in his symphony.
The result was that Langgaard's parents and relatives privately funded an all- Langgaard_concert with the Berlin Philharmonic and the conductor Max Fiedler in 1913, when the composer was 19.
Yet the considerable success Langgaard achieved in Berlin was not the cue for a career on Danish soil. The world premiere of his Symphony No. 2 Vaarbrud (Spring) in Copenhagen the following year thus did not to lead to a breakthrough for the composer. The critics were particularly sceptical.
In 1914 Rued Langgaard made his debut as a conductor in Copenhagen. Over the next few years he did quite a bit of conducting, but only of his own works. If we are to believe contemporary judgements, Langgaard had no striking talent as a conductor.
The music of nature, machinery and space
In the years 1914-18 large and small works flowed from the pen of Langgaard in a constant stream. In the middle of this period we find one of the marked watersheds in Langgaard's oeuvre. The optimism of the early works now yields to a more personal, melancholy and dissonant idiom. At the same time Langgaard begins to experiment with the form of the works. The work that begins this new phase in Langgaard's music is his Symphony No. 4 Løvfald (Fall of the Leaf) (1916) - a one-movement symphonic "autumn diary".
The sounds of nature, machinery and 'space' are brought into the works. This is done in miniature format in Insektarium, a series of small, aphoristic piano pieces, each describing an insect, and in String Quartet No. 2, which includes a 'futuristic' impression of a locomotive in a delirious, Bartók-like idiom.
In some of the highly imaginative, experimental works from these years Langgaard was ahead of his time. This is particularly true of Sfærernes_Musik (Music of the Spheres), the most visionary work from Langgaard's pen. It was first performed in Germany in 1921 and 1922, but then forgotten and neglected until 1968, when it was performed again and became the focus of a renewed interest in Langgaard.
The loner and the musical scene
When Langgaard was trying to make his mark as a symphonist the performance options for orchestral music in Denmark were extremely poor. So Langgaard organized a concert of his own in 1917, presenting his new Fourth Symphony, among other works. The concert was a success with the audience, while the critics - as usual - had their reservations.
The very few, scattered performances gave the public no opportunity to follow the expansive artistic development of the composer. And several of the important works Langgaard wrote in his younger years were either not performed in Copenhagen, or were badly received.
Langgaard was a loner, and although his original talents were recognized, the critics soon had him marked down as a 'child prodigy' who had not received the rigorous training necessary to bridle his talent.
Rued Langgaard, for his part, was not good at "selling himself". He was shy and never became part of an artistic environment which could balance the introverted, self-conscious atmosphere that surrounded his parents and their circle. Langgaard never acquired any strong advocates in the musical world, and only a small group of musicians supported him.
Another thing was that in these crucial years for Langgaard a new standard for progressive music was set in Danmark. For Carl Nielsen began in earnest to draw up the aesthetic agenda, while the opposition to Nielsen, to which the Langgaard family belonged, lost ground.
And finally, there must have been something in the personality of the brilliant, introverted youth that made people feel uncertain about him. In the 1910's Langgaard began to look around for a position as a church organist in Copenhagen, but despite his legendary organ-playing, he only succeeded in getting a couple of relatively short-term assistant job
"The Music of All Things"
The years 1919-24 are the 'modernist' phase in Rued Langgaard's output. In these years he composed a handful of works full of contrasts, which seek ways of expressing existential, religious truths and dealing with apocalyptic subjects; works like Symphony No. 6, Violin Sonata No. 2 and the piano work Afgrundsmusik (Music of the Abyss). At the centre stands the opera Antikrist (Antichrist).
At the same time it was a period when Langgaard's music seems to have enjoyed some success. At the beginning of the 1920's several of his orchestral works - for example Symphonies Nos. 2 and 4 and Sfærernes Musik - were performed in Germany and Austria. And in contemporary music circles in Copenhagen it also appeared for a while that Langgaard was among the young composers to be reckoned with.
One of his most important works, his Symphony No. 6 (later given the title Det Himmelrivende - the Heaven-Rending), was given its first performance in Karlsruhe in 1923 with the composer conducting. The work was received with enthusiasm, while the Danish premiere a few months later can only be described as a scandal.
Langgaard himself saw the symphony as a work that pointed to the future, when a new era for music had to dawn, if everything was not to become meaningless. It was Langgaard's dream that music and art could become part of the life of society and culture in a crucially meaningful way. Around 1923 he formulated his - Utopian - ideas about this in writing in Fremtidens Frelser og Jesu musikalske Selskab (The Saviour of the Future and the Musical Society of Jesus), where he attempts to conceive of the kind of music the future needs, and calls it "The Music of All Things". Neoromantic revival
Around New Year 1924/25, Rued Langgaard took an unsual mental and stylistic 'U-turn'. His music was never again to sound as it had done before this turning-point, which divides his oeuvre in two.
After an explosive development from Late Romanticism to the point where he had become one of the most relentless Danish Modernists, Langgaard suddenly began to compose idyllic Romantic music that could have been written in the decades before his birth.
Apparently, Langgaard could no longer stomach the idea that art should give expression to existential problems.
He now advocated an 'impersonal', classically pure music, uncomplicated, with a simple message. And for him this meant Romantic music with beauty, memory and nostalgia as its pivotal values.
The change was sudden, and although Langgaard did develop further from this 'zero point', twenty years were to pass before he broke out of its constraints.
But Rued Langgaard was not the only composer who, in the turbulence of the twenties, sought an objective artistic foundation, a truth beyond the personal. It was a tendency of the period, which affected both Stravinsky and Carl Nielsen. But Langgaard's reaction was out of step with most others, in that it moved towards Romanticism rather than Neoclassicism or the "new objectivity".
In Langgaard's case, though, it was not simply a 'period' reaction. Its background was a series of artistic defeats, most recently the rejection of his opera. For an ambitious artist like Langgaard, doubts about his own value, and artistic heart-searching, were inevitable. That he was affected by these things at a deeply personal level is, interestingly enough, reflected in the composer's handwriting.
Nor was it only in music that Langgaard looked back towards his roots. In 1927 he moved, shortly after marrying ConstanceTetens, to a house his grandfather had once built far out in the open fields at Høje Tåstrup. But the next year the couple moved back to Langgaard's childhood neighbourhood in Copenhagen. And their summers were spent in places he had visited with his parents as a child.
In these years Langgaard worked temporarily as an organist at the Christiansborg Palace Chapel in Copenhagen. He was still looking for a position, even in the provinces - but without success. And when the post at Christiansborg Palace Chapel was announced as vacant in 1931, it was more or less promised to him - but he did not get it.
The struggle with the Zeitgeist
Rued Langgaard now turned his anger outward - against Carl Nielsen and all that he stood for, and against the musical establishment. Langgaard's life took on an unfortunate dimension and character, after a long, exhausting struggle for acceptance as an artist and as a loner; a struggle that loomed larger and larger in his consciousness and helped to drive him off course, artistically and mentally.
For a few years around 1930 Langgaard contributed in various ways to the intense cultural and musical debate of the day. In 1927, for example, he established "De kedeliges Musikforening" (The Boring Music Society) as an ironic bastion against what he saw as the cultural poverty of the period. It was short-lived.
Langgaard also wrote articles and readers' letters in the newspapers where his idealistic, religious view of music was expressed. Few were actually printed - among other things a polemic against Thomas Laub's influential church music reform. Langgaard was unemployed as an organist and had no opportunity to put his views into practice in church music. Personal and artistic motives prompted him to continue the struggle for a position as a church organist. Financial considerations were not a crucial factor for him.
In the 1930's Langgaard almost came to a standstill as far as the composition of new works was concerned, and instead he worked on the revision and reworking of previous compositions. And he read and read, seeking confirmation for his cultural pessimism, filling loose sheets of paper, notebooks and blocks with quotations and - sometimes very personal - notes.
The musical establishment by and large ignored him, and the situation was not improved by the way he presented himself in newspaper interviews as a martyr persecuted and betrayed by the age and its musical institutions. Only Danmarks Radio (the national broadcasting corporation, then called Statsradiofonien) felt a certain obligation towards Langgaard.
In the middle of this 'tragic decade' in Langgaard's life, when both external and internal problems came to a head, Langgaard succeeded in creating the mighty organ work Messis (Høstens Tid), (Messis - The Harvest Time), which stands as a central monument in his oeuvre.
Cathedral organist in Ribe
Langgaard's persistent lobbying was one of the things that paved the way for his success in obtaining - at the age of 47, and among 48 applicants - the job as cathedral organist and precentor at Ribe Cathedral in 1940, shortly after the German occupation of the country.
Ribe is far from Copenhagen, so Langgaard's engagement there inevitably took on the character of a 'banishment' of someone who was an undesirable in the capital. But for Langgaard the most important thing was the feeling that he was needed. For more than 15-20 years his greatest wish had been a modest organist's job, so it is not surprising that his mental state, which in the 1930's had reached a critical point, immediately improved on his arrival in Ribe.
His stable activities as a musican in the historic city stimulated his creativitity, and in 1942, after fourteen years, Langgaard took up the symphonic genre again in his Symphony No. 9 Fra Dronning Dagmars By (From the City of Queen Dagmar).
But Langgaard never tuned in to the mentality of the provincial city, and most of the citizens of Ribe had an uncomprehending attitude to this 'odd' artist. The children teased him, and he became entangled in innumerable petty clashes with the clergy, the congregational council and organist colleagues. If he was riled, his attitude could be provocative, bad-tempered and devil-may-care. Very few people got to know about his more good-humoured side.
Langgaard felt isolated as an artist in Ribe, but drew support from Constance, who also helped him by making fair copies of his scores and generally took charge of all practical matters.
The bizarre and the absurd
Contrary to what one might think, Langgaard had not stagnated as an artist. A new phase in his oeuvre began with the inspired Symphony No. 10 Hin Torden-Bolig (Yon Dwelling of Thunder) from 1944-45, which was the last of his 16 symphonies that he was to hear performed.
With Symphonies Nos. 11 and 12 and the Fri Klaversonate (Free Piano Sonata), strange 'autobiographical', bizarre and absurd features were added to the pastiche-like Romantic style Langgaard had long cultivated. An opaque - often 'private' - symbolism permeates the musical idiom.
Some of Langgaard's later works can be seen as protests against the composer's situation and as comments on his time - and on the musical tradition. This is true for example of the ultra-short Symphony No. 11 Ixion, written for an orchestra with four extra tubas.
The new tendency was a consequence of Langgaard's isolated position as a composer. After all, it seemed meaningless to carry on creating music to illuminate and open up the spiritual dimension of life when no one seemed to need it. Langgaard's later, contrast-filled and fragmented works express a dilemma: on the one hand the conviction that the composer brings us vital artistic/religious messages - and on the other the realization that the world is profoundly indifferent to them.
But Langgaard persisted. The period from May 1947 to September 1949 was his most productive ever. His list of works grew in this interval by some 60 items, including Symphonies No. 13 Undertro (Oh Ye of Little Faith), No. 14 Morgenen (Morning) and No. 15 Søstormen (Tempest), a strange piano work like Le Béguinage- and the choral work Carl Nielsen, vor store Komponist (Carl Nielsen, Our Great Composer).
Professor Langgaard
Langgaard's last years were dominated by resignation and physical frailty. After October 1949 he composed only minor works, with the exception of Symphony No. 16 Syndflod af Sol (Sun Deluge). The symphony was dedicated to the National Danish Radio Symphony Orchestra in gratitude for what the orchestra had done for the composer, but was not given its first performance until 1966.
In 1951 Langgaard was appointed Honorary Professor at a music institute in Lausanne, Switzerland. Langgaard was proud of the title and brandished it right and left, but in reality it was of highly dubious value and nowhere near as fancy as the diploma he was sent.
But the lifelong struggle had left its scars, and in January 1951 Langgaard suffered a stroke which was the decisive blow to his health. He attempted with great will-power to carry on with his job as an organist, but in the end could not complete a whole church service. Shortly before his 59th birthday, in July 1952, Rued Langgaard died and was buried in Holmens Churchyard in Copenhagen.

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Robin Milford (British-1903-1959)

Robin Milford (22 January 1903–29 December 1959) was an English composer.

Biography

Milford was born in Oxford, son of Sir Humphrey Milford, publisher with Oxford University Press. He attended Rugby School from 1916 where his musical talent for the piano, flute and theory was recognised, and studied at the Royal College of Music from 1921 to 1926. His composition teachers were Gustav Holst and Ralph Vaughan Williams, and he studied harmony and counterpoint under R. O. Morris. He also studied organ.
In 1927, he married. Realising that he would not be able to make a living solely as a composer he worked for a time with the Aeolian Company correcting Duo-Art pianola rolls until 1930. He also taught part-time at Ludgrove School (where his pupils included the music enthusiast George Lascelles, later 7th Earl of Harewood) and at Downe House School. In 1929 he had met fellow-composer Gerald Finzi, with whom he found he had much in common, personally and musically, and the two formed a lifelong friendship.
His early compositions met with some success, his Double Fugue Op. 10 winning a Carnegie Prize and being performed by the London Symphony Orchestra under Vaughan Williams. In September 1931 his oratorio A Prophet in the Land Op. 21 was performed in Gloucester Cathedral as part of the Three Choirs Festival - the work was somewhat overshadowed by the splash made by William Walton's Belshazzar's Feast performed the same year. In 1937 a performance of his Concerto Grosso Op. 46 was directed by Malcolm Sargent, and his Violin Concerto Op. 47 was broadcast by the BBC in early 1938.
At the outbreak of the Second World War Milford volunteered for the army, and was posted to the Pioneer Corps. After just one week, he suffered a breakdown, and after treatment he and his family moved to Guernsey. His depression was deepened by the death of his mother in 1940. He returned to England, to teach and compose, but soon afterwards his five-year-old son was killed in a road accident prompting Milford to attempt suicide; he attempted to take his own life again soon afterwards in hospital. In 1946, he had recovered sufficiently to resume teaching (at Badminton School) and to undertake musical activities. He continued composing throughout this period.
After the death of his father in 1952, he was prescribed occasional shock therapy. He did continue to enjoy successes: his Overture for a Celebration Op. 103 was performed under John Barbirolli at the 1955 Cheltenham Music Festival. He also continued to receive moral and material support from his friends Finzi (who led a performance of Fishing by Moonlight Op 96 in 1956) and Vaughan Williams (who arranged a performance of the Concertino Op 106 in 1958, and gave financial help).
The deaths of Finzi (1956) and Vaughan Williams (1958) affected Milford deeply. His final illness affected his vision and his balance, and he committed suicide by taking an overdose of aspirin in December 1959.

Music

It has been observed that Milford's writing shows strongly the influence of Vaughan Williams, as might be expected. His use of diatonic melodies, often harmonised with gentle discords, and with false relations occurring occasionally, has led Erik Blom (1942) to crystallise these musical traits (also shown by other English composers of the period) as "musical Englishry".
Despite the tragic events of Milford's life, and his resultant depression, he seems to have had a capacity for incidental enjoyment and his music is by no means gloomy. Indeed, a factor contributing to Milford's depression was that his brand of English music, as handed down from Vaughan Williams and Holst, was going out of fashion, and his music was not appreciated in a musical scene which was increasingly modernist even while Milford's own music was becoming more conservative.
As well as large scale works, Milford also wrote smaller pieces, for example organ pieces suitable for playing as church voluntaries (he was himself a village church organist) and piano works. Milford was able to show the character of a song setting with just a few notes, for example in the very brief piano introduction to If it's ever Spring Again.
Recordings of his music are few, although some of his music - some songs, his Concertino Op. 106 and a selection of pieces including Fishing by Moonlight Op. 96 - are available

Notable compositions

Milford's compositions include

The Shoemaker Op. 3, children's opera (1923) Double Fugue Op. 10, for orchestra (1926) The Darkling Thrush Op. 17, for violin and orchestra (1929) Go Little Book Op. 18, suite for flute, optional soprano and orchestra (1928) Two Orchestral Interludes Op. 19e, for orchestra (arrangements of two easy piano duets, written before 1930) Concertino for Harpsichord and String Orchestra Op. 20 (1929) A Prophet in the Land Op. 21, dramatic oratorio (1929) Symphony Op. 34 (1933, perhaps never performed in full, withdrawn in 1956 although admired by Vaughan Williams - see quote) Miniature Concerto in G Op. 35, for string quartet or orchestra, with optional double basses (1933) Four Songs Op. 36 (1933) includes So Sweet Love Seemed (no. 1) Concerto Grosso Op. 46 (1936) Violin Concerto Op. 47 (1937) Four Hardy Songs Op. 48 (1938) includes The Colour, no. 2 If it's ever Spring Again, no. 3 Elegy for James Scott, Duke of Monmouth and Buccleugh Op. 50, for string orchestra (1939) A Mass for Children's Voices Op. 62 (1941-42) Sonata in C for flute and piano, Op. 69a (1944), of which Milford arranged the slow movement for flute and string orchestra Elegiac Meditation Op. 83, for viola and string orchestra (1946-47) A Mass for Christmas Morning Op. 84, for five voices (1945-47) Fishing by Moonlight Op. 96 for piano and string orchestra (1952 arrangement of 1949 piece for two harpsichords or two pianos) Festival Suite Op. 97, for string orchestra (1950) Overture for a Celebration Op. 103 (1952-54) Concertino in E Op. 106, for piano and string orchestra (1955) The Scarlet Letter Op. 112, opera based on novel by Nathaniel Hawthorne (1958-59)

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Roger Quilter (British 1877-1953)

He was born at his parents’ home in Hove, Sussex, UK, on November 1st 1877. At that time, his father, a shrewd and extremely wealthy stockbroker and businessman, was still plain William Cuthbert Quilter, but in 1897, Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee Year, he became Sir Cuthbert Quilter, Bart. Sir Cuthbert was an art collector (his collection was well-known in its day) and he owned a very substantial estate in Suffolk, England.

Roger was the third of five sons, in a large family. His mother encouraged his artistic inclinations, and he was devoted to her. He attended a preparatory school in Farnborough and in January 1892, he began at Eton College, where, though the emphasis was upon sporting achievement, he was allowed to pursue his musical studies. However, Eton’s atmosphere was not congenial for someone of his sensitivity, and in later years, he was reported to have said that he hated his time there.
Around 1896 a family friend suggested that he continue his musical studies in Frankfurt. To go abroad to study was still a common route at this time, since the English music academies were not especially well-established. So Quilter enrolled at the Hoch Conservatory at Frankfurt-am-Main; he took composition lessons with Ivan Knorr, as did Balfour Gardiner, Norman O’Neill, Cyril Scott, and the redoubtable Percy Grainger, though they were not all there at the same time. They had in common a dislike of Beethoven, and they became known as the ‘Frankfurt Group’.
On his return, he continued to write songs, having begun while at Frankfurt, and in March 1901, his Songs of the Sea were performed by Denham Price at the Crystal Palace. Gervase Elwes, one of the leading tenors of the day, began to sing Quilter’s songs, and the song-cycle To Julia - which was dedicated to Elwes - put Quilter firmly on the map as a song composer.
Over the succeeding years, Quilter continued to write songs for an appreciative audience. He also continued in poor health (his letters are peppered with references to how ill he was feeling), and consequently did not serve in the First World War. Instead, he organised concerts in various hospitals, and a series of chamber concerts that he was involved with continued after the war.
Gervase Elwes was killed in an accident at Boston railway station, Massachusetts, in 1921. The Musicians’ Benevolent Fund, in the UK, was set up in his memory, and Quilter was a founder member, serving faithfully and attending the committee meetings regularly until his death. In 1923, he met a young baritone, Mark Raphael, whom he encouraged and worked with closely. He also had a private secretary, Leslie Woodgate, during the 1920s, and both Raphael and Woodgate remained lifelong and loyal friends.
In 1911, the children’s play Where the Rainbow Ends was premièred at the Savoy Theatre, London; Quilter wrote the incidental music for it. Produced by Italia Conti, who subsequently founded the Italia Conti School (now the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts), it was immensely successful, and for many years Quilter conducted the opening matinée of the season. The parties for the cast of children, that he held at his home in Montagu Street, London, were also well-known.
Most of his best work was produced before 1923, though there are some superb songs produced after this time. He collaborated with Rodney Bennett on a number of projects, including the light opera, Julia, which was premièred at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, in December 1936. For many years, his songs were broadcast frequently on radio.
He was a nervous, anxious man, cultured, well-read and well-travelled, but not happy with others of his social class unless they shared his love of the arts. His favourite nephew, Arnold Vivian, was killed in tragic circumstances during the second World War; the shock was immense, and was possibly (given Quilter’s nature, the pressures on him as a result of his homosexuality, and other events) the final straw responsible for the triggering of his severe mental illness. In his last years, he was undoubtedly extremely difficult to live with, and there are allegations of blackmail; the events of these years are however open to different interpretations.
In 1952, his 75th birthday was marked by the BBC with a celebration concert, conducted by Leslie Woodgate. He died within the year, at his home in St John’s Wood, London, on the 21st September 1953, and was buried in the family vault at Bawdsey church, Suffolk. A memorial concert in London was very well attended by family and fellow musicians, and by ordinary people who loved his music.

Music
Quilter wrote mostly songs, but there are a few piano pieces, some orchestral pieces and some incidental music to theatrical works. There are a few chamber works, too: these are almost always arrangements of his other pieces.
His music was superbly crafted, and has an iridescent quality. It is often extremely powerful (particularly the Five Jacobean Lyrics - not a quality usually associated with Quilter. The songs always lie well: this is one feature that made them so popular - there were never any awkward intervals - and the accompaniments are closely integrated with the vocal line. A wistfulness tends to pervade all Quilter’s music: it is a very English sound, that we tend to associate with the Edwardian period, but perhaps it stems too from Quilter’s own personality.
Because of his early fame as a song-writer, there appears to have been little call for him to write in any other genre. But his other music, though light in nature (he never attempted any long forms), is a delight to listen to, and a joy to play. His piano music in particular is freed of the restrictions of having to write comfortably for singers and their pianists; it is effective and atmospheric, and owes much to Debussy. ‘At a Country Fair’ (from Three Pieces for Piano) has a percussive timbre with hints of Stravinsky’s Petrushka. The Three Studies are still in print, in an excellent volume available through Boosey & Hawkes; the Three Pieces, Two Impressions and Country Pieces are also available from Boosey’s as authorised photocopies.

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Boris Lyatoshynsky (Ukranian, 1895-1968)

Borys Mykolayovych Lyatoshynsky (Ukrainian) (January 3, 1895 - April 15, 1968) was a composer, conductor, teacher, and leading member of the new generation of twentieth century Ukrainian composers.
Biography .
Borys Lyatoshynsky was born in Zhytomyr (also the birthplace of Sviatoslav Richter), in the Russian Empire (now Ukraine). His father, Mykola Leontiyovych Lyatoshynsky, was a history teacher and was an activist in historical studies. He was also the director of various gymnasiums in Zhytomyr, Nemyriv, and Zlatopol. Lyatoshynsky's mother played the piano well and sang.
Lyatoshynsky started out playing piano and violin. At 14, he wrote a few musical pieces including a mazurka and waltz for piano, along with quartet for piano. He also attended the Zhytomyr Gymnasium, from where he graduated in 1913. After graduating, he joined Kyiv University and later the newly-established Kyiv Conservatory, where he studied composition with Reinhold Gliere in 1914. Lyatoshynsky graduated from Kyiv University in 1918, and from the Kyiv Conservatory in 1919. During this time, he wrote his String Quartet No.1, op.1, and his Symphony No.1, op.2.
In 1920, Lyatoshynsky started to teach musical-theoretical disciplines at the Kyiv Conservatory, and from 1922 he taught composition. From 1922 to 1925 he was in charge of the Association of Modern Music in the name of Mykola Leontovych (his father's name).

Works

Stage

The Golden Ring, opera in 4 acts opus 23 (1929) (revised in 1970) "Shchors", opera about Nikolay Shchors in 5 acts after I. Kocherha and M.Rylsky opus 29 (1937) The Commander, opera (1970)

Orchestral

5 symphonies Symphony No. 1 A major opus 2 (1918-1919) Symphony No. 2 B minor opus 26 (1935-1936) Revised in 1940. Symphony No. 3 B minor opus 50 "To the 25th Anniversary of the October revolution" (1951) Symphony No. 4 B? minor opus 63 (1963)[1] Symphony No. 5 C major "Slavonic" opus 67 (1965-1966) Fantastic March opus 3 (1920) Overture on four Ukrainian Folk themes opus 20 (1927) Suite from the Opera "The Golden Tire" opus 23 (1928) Lyric Poem (1947) Song of the reunification of Russia opus 49 (1949-1950) Waltz (1951) Suite from the Film music "Taras Shevchenko" opus 51 (1952) Slavonic Concerto for piano and orchestra opus 54 (1953) Suite from the Play "Romeo and Juliet" opus 56 (1955) "On the Banks of Vistula", symphonic poem opus 59 (1958) Orchestration of String Quartet No. 2 A major opus 4 (No. 2 Intermezzo) for orchestra (1960) Polish Suite opus 60 (1961) Slavonic Overture opus 61 (1961) Lyric Poem "To the Memory of Gliere" opus 66 (1964) Slavonic Suite opus 68 (1966) Festive Overture opus 70 (1967) "Grazyna", ballade after A. Mickiewicz opus 58 (1955)

Vocal/Choral

OrchestralFestive Cantata "To the 60th Anniversary of Stalin" after Rilskov for mixed chorus and orchestra (1938) "Inheritance", cantata after Shevtshenko (1939)

Chamber/Instrumental

5 string quartets String Quartet No. 1 D minor opus 1 (1915) String Quartet No. 2 A major opus 4 (1922) String Quartet No. 3 opus 21 (1928) String Quartet No. 4 opus 43 (1943) String Quartet No. 5 (1944-1951) Piano Trio No. 1 opus 7 (1922) (revised in 1925) Sonata for violin and piano opus 19 (1926) Three Pieces after Folksong-Themes for violin and piano opus 25 (1932) Piano Trio No. 2 opus 41 (1942) Piano Quintet "Ukrainian Quintet" opus 42 (1942) Suite on Ukrainian Folksong-Themes for string quartet opus 45 (1944) Suite for wind quartet opus 46 (1944) Two Mazurkas on Polonian Themes for cello and piano (1953) Nocturne and Scherzo for viola and piano (1963)

Piano

Elegy-Prelude (1920) Piano Sonata No. 1 opus 13 (1924) Seven Pieces "Reflections" opus 16 (1925) Piano Sonata No. 2 "Sonata Ballade" opus 18 (1925) Ballad opus 22 (1928-1929) Ballad opus 24 (1929) Suite (1941) Three Preludes opus 38 (1942) Two Preludes opus 38b (1942) Shevchenko-Suite (1942) Not finished. Five Preludes opus 44 (1943) Concerto Etude-Rondo (1962-1965) Concert-Etude (1962-1967)

Vocal

"Moonshadow", song after Verlaine, I.Severyanin, Balmont and Wilde opus 9 (1923) Two Poems after Shelley opus 10 (1923) Two Songs after Maeterlinck and Balmont opus 12 (1923) Four Poems after Shelley opus 14 (1924) Poems for baritone and piano opus 15 (1924)
ChoralThe Sun Rises at the Horizon, song after Shevtshenko for chorus Water, Flow into the Blue Lake!, song after Shevtshenko for chorus Seasons after Pushkin for chorus Po negy kradetsya luna after Pushkin for chorus Kto, volny, vas ostanovil after Pushkin for chorus

Incidental and Film music

Music to the Play "Optimistic Tragedy" (1932) Music to the Film "Taras Shevtshenko" (1950) Music to the Play "Romeo and Julia" (1954) Music to the Film "The Hooked Pig's Snout" (1956) Music to the Film "Ivan Franko" (1956)

Band

March No. 1 for wind orchestra (1931) March No. 2 for wind orchestra (1932) March No. 3 for wind orchestra (1936)

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Boris Tchaikovsky (Russia 1925-1996)

Boris Alexandrovich Tchaikovsky (no relations to Pyotr Ilyich) was born in Moscow on September 10, 1925. His father was an expert in statistics and economic geography (and also a capable self-taught violinist), and his mother was a medic (and it was she who urged him towards a musical career). The parents were talented individuals who worked very efficiently, knew literature and art well, and passionately loved music. The ethical principles inherited from the parents became his lifelong inner core.

He entered the Gnessin's Primary Musical School at the age of nine Among his first musical teachers were Alexandra Golovina, Elena F. Gnessina. B.Tchaikovsky's first teacher in composition was Eugeny Messner. Then B.Tchaikovsky in due course proceeded to the Gnessin's Specialized Musical School, where he studied with Vissarion Shebalin, Igor Sposobin, A.Mutly.

In 1943 Boris entered into the Moscow Conservatory where he studied the piano under Lev Oborin and composition under other prominent teachers - Vissarion Shebalin, Dmitry Shostakovich and Nikolay Myaskovsky. During the anti-formalist campaign of 1948 Shostakovich was banned from teaching and his students were deemed to have been contaminated. But Tchaikovsky refused to renounce his teachers, proving the integrity and strength of his character.

B.Tchaikovsky graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in 1949. Already in 1949 Nikolay Myaskovsky wrote: "...Boris Tchaikovsky is very gifted young composer with good composers technique and undoubtedly significant creative individuality".

After quitting the job at the radio station in 1952, Boris Tchaikovsky made his living only from composing music, including commissioned works and scores for radio, theatre, film and television.

B.Tchaikovsky was awarded by the USSR State Prize (in 1969, for creation The Second Symphony) and became the People's Artist of USSR (in 1985).

During the last years of his life (from 1989 to 1996) he taught at the Russian Academy of Music, where he was a Professor in the department of composition. Composers Stanislav Prokudin, Yury Abdokov, Rade Radovich, Alexander Khristianov, Elena Astafieva and Jakov Kurochkin were the students in B.Tchaikovsky's composition class.

Boris Tchaikovsky died on February 7, 1996 in Moscow

Listen from You Tube his Suite For cello solo Part 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y4oVDvTjSw

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yZ3VJ-ioZc4

Enjoy this Great music and explore more of this neglected composer

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Cesar Cui (Russia-1835-1918)

César Antonovich Cui (Russian:, Tsezar' Antonovic Kjui) (18 January [O.S. 6 January] 1835 - March 13, 1918) was a Russian of French and Lithuanian descent. His profession was as an army officer and a teacher of fortifications; his avocational life has particular significance in the history of music, in that he was a composer and music critic; in this sideline he is known as a member of The Five, the group of Russian composers under the leadership of Mily Balakirev dedicated to the production of a specifically Russian type of music.
Biography
Upbringing and careerCesarius-Benjaminus Cui was born in Vilnius (the capital of Lithuania), to a Roman Catholic family, as the youngest of five children. His French father Antoine (name russianized as Anton Leonardovich), had entered Russia as a member of Napoleon's army in 1812, settled in Vilnius upon their defeat, and married a local woman named Julia Gucewicz. Amidst this multi-ethnic environment young César grew up learning French, Russian, Polish, and Lithuanian. Before finishing gymnasium, in 1850 Cui was sent to Saint Petersburg to prepare to enter the Chief Engineering School, which he did the next year at age 16. In 1855 he was graduated from the Academy, and after advanced studies at the Nikolaevsky Engineering Academy, he began his military career in 1857 as an instructor in fortifications. His students over the decades included several members of the Imperial family, most notably Nicolas II. Cui eventually ended up teaching at three of the military academies in Saint Petersburg. Cui's study of fortifications gained from frontline assignment during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 proved quite important for his career. As an expert on military fortifications, Cui eventually attained the academic status of professor in 1880 and the military rank of general in 1906. His writings on fortifications included textbooks that were widely used, in several successive editions (see bibliography below).
Avocational life in musicDespite his achievements as a professional military academic, Cui is best known in the West for his "other" life in music. As a boy in Vilnius he received piano lessons, studied Chopin's works, and began composing little pieces at fourteen years of age. In the few months before he was sent to Petersburg, he managed to have some lessons in music theory with the Polish composer Stanislaw Moniuszko, who was residing in Vilnius at the time. Cui's musical direction changed in 1856, when he met Mily Balakirev and began to be more seriously involved with music.
Even though he was composing music and writing music criticism in his spare time, Cui turned out to be an extremely prolific composer and feuilletonist. His public "debut" as a composer occurred 1859 with the performance of his orchestral Scherzo, Op. 1, under the baton of Anton Rubinstein and the auspices of the Russian Musical Society. In 1869 the first public performance of an opera by Cui took place; this was his William Ratcliff (based on the tragedy by Heinrich Heine); but it did not ultimately have success, partially because of the harshness of his own writings in the music press.]All but one of his operas were composed to Russian texts; the one exception, Le Flibustier (based on a play by Jean Richepin), premiered at the Opéra-Comique in Paris in 1894 (twenty-five years after Ratcliff), but it did not succeed either. Cui's more successful stage works during his lifetime were the one-act comic opera The Mandarin's Son (publicly premiered in 1878), the three-act Prisoner of the Caucasus (1883), based on Pushkin, and the one-act Mademoiselle Fifi (1903), based on Guy de Maupassant. [16]Besides Flibustier, the only other operas by Cui performed in his lifetime outside of the Russian Empire were Prisoner of the Caucasus (in Liège, 1886) and the children's opera Puss in Boots (in Rome, 1915).
Cui among artists of the Moscow Bolshoi Theatre, 1902Cui's activities in musical life included also membership on the opera selection committee at the Mariinsky Theatre; this stint ended in 1883, when both he and Rimsky-Korsakov left the committee in protest of its rejection of Mussorgsky's Khovanshchina . During 1896-1904 he was director of the Petersburg branch of the Russian Musical Society.
Among the many musicians Cui knew in his life, Franz Liszt looms large. Liszt valued the music of Russian composers quite highly; for Cui's opera William Ratcliff he expressed some of the highest praise. Cui's book La musique en Russie and Suite pour piano, Op. 21, are dedicated to the elder composer. In addition, Cui's Tarantelle for orchestra, Op. 12, formed the basis for Liszt's last piano transcription.
Two personalities of direct significance for Cui were women who were specially devoted to his music. In Belgium, the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau (1837-1890) was most influential in making possible the staging there of Prisoner of the Caucasus in 1885. In Moscow, Mariya Kerzina, with her husband Arkadiy Kerzin, formed in 1896 the Circle of Russian Music Lovers, a performance society, which began in 1898 to give special place to works by Cui, among those of other Russian composers, in its concerts.
In such a long and active musical life as Cui's there were many accolades. In the late 1880s and early 1890s several foreign musical societies honored Cui with memberships. Shortly after the staging of Le Flibustier in Paris, Cui was elected as a correspondent member of the Académie française and awarded the cross of the Légion d'honneur. In 1896 the Belgian Royal Academy of Literature and Art made him a member. In 1909 and 1910 events were held in honor of Cui's 50th anniversary as a composer.
Family Grave of Mal'vina and César Cui at Tikhvin Cemetery in Saint PetersburgCui married Mal'vina Rafailovna Bamberg in 1858. He had met her at the home of Alexander Dargomyzhsky, from whom she was taking singing lessons Among the musical works Cui dedicated to her is the early Scherzo, Op. 1 (1857), which uses themes based on her maiden name (BAmBErG) and his own initials (C.C.), and the comic opera The Mandarin's Son. César and Mal'vina had two children, Lidiya and Aleksandr. Lidiya, an amateur singer, married and had a son named Yuri Borisovich Amoretti; in the period before the October Revolution Aleksandr was a member of the Russian Senate.
Last years and deathIn 1916 the composer went blind, although he was able to compose small pieces by dictation. Cui died on March 26, 1918 from cerebral apoplexy and was buried next to his wife Mal'vina (who had died in 1899) at the Smolensk Lutheran Cemetery in Saint Petersburg. In 1939 his body was reinterred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, Saint Petersburg, to lie beside the other members of The Five.
Cui as a music critic Caricature of Cui by Rayevsky, based on a painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme. The gladiators in the center bear shields inscribed with the titles of Cui's operas William Ratcliff, The Mandarin's Son, and AngeloAs a writer on music, Cui contributed almost 800 articles between 1864 and 1918 to various newspapers and other publications in Russia and Europe. (He "retired" from regular music criticism in 1900.) His wide coverage included concerts, recitals, musical life, new publications of music, and personalities. A significant number of his articles (ca. 300) dealt with opera. Several of his themed sets of articles were reissued as monographs; these covered topics as varied as the original 1876 production of Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen in Bayreuth, the development of the Russian romance (art song), music in Russia, and Anton Rubinstein's seminal lectures on the history of piano music of 1888-1889. (See list of writings below.) In addition, as indicated above as part of his profession, Cui also published many books and articles about military fortifications.
Because of rules related to his status in the Russian military, in the early years his musico-critical articles had to be published under a pseudonym, which consisted of three asterisks (***); in Petersburg musical circles, however, it became clear who was writing the articles]His musical reviews began in the St.Petersburg Vedomosti, expressing disdain for music before Beethoven (such as Mozart) and his advocacy of originality in music. Sarcasm was a regular feature of his feuilletons.
Cui's primary goal as a critic was to promote the music of contemporary Russian composers, especially the works of his now better-known co-members of The Five. Even they, however, were not spared negative reactions from him here and there, especially in his blistering review of the first production of Mussorgsky's Boris Godunov in 1873. (Later in life Cui championed the music of this late colleague of his, to the point of making the first completion of Mussorgsky's unfinished opera The Fair at Sorochyntsi.)
Russian composers outside of The Five, however, were often more likely to produce a negative reaction. This derived at least partly from distrust of the western-style conservatory system in favor of the autodidactic approach that The Five had practiced. Cui lambasted Tchaikovsky's second performed opera, The Oprichnik, for instance[34]; and his stinging remarks about Rachmaninoff's Symphony No.1 are often cited. (Fortunately for posterity, both works have survived their unfavorable premieres.)
Of Western composers, Cui favored Berlioz and Liszt as progressives. He admired Wagner's aspirations concerning music drama, but did not agree with that composer's methods to achieve them (such as the leitmotif system and the predominance of the orchestra).
Late in life Cui's presumed progressiveness as espoused in the 1860s and '70s faded, and he showed firm hostility towards the younger "modernists" such as Richard Strauss and Vincent d'Indy. Cui's very last published articles (from 1917) constituted merciless parodies, including the little song "Hymn to Futurism")and "Concise Directions on How to Become a Modern Composer of Genius without Being a Musician"
Cui as a composer
Cui composed in almost all genres of his time, with the distinct exceptions of the symphony and the symphonic poem (unlike his compatriots Balakirev, Borodin, Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov). By far art songs constitute the greatest number of works by Cui; these include a few vocal duets and many songs for children. Several of his songs are available also in versions with orchestral accompaniment, including his Bolero, Op. 17, which was dedicated to the singer Marcella Sembrich. Some of his most famous art songs include "The Statue at Tsarskoye Selo" and "The Burnt Letter," , both based on poems by Cui's most valued poet, Pushkin.
In addition, Cui wrote many works for piano and for chamber groups (including three string quartets), numerous choruses, and several orchestral works, but his most significant efforts are reflected in the operas, of which he composed fifteen of varying proportions. Besides children's music (which includes four fairytale operas as well as the aforementioned songs), three other special categories of compositions stand out among his works: pieces inspired by and dedicated to the Comtesse de Mercy-Argenteau (whom the composer knew from 1885 to her death in 1890; works associated with the Circle of Russian Music Lovers (the "Kerzin Circle"); and pieces inspired by the Russo-Japanese War and World War I.
As to the current status of Cui the composer, in the last few decades one of his children's operas (of which he composed four) entitled Puss-in-Boots (from Perrault) has had wide appeal in Germany. Nevertheless, despite the fact that more of Cui's music is being made available in recent years in recordings and in new printed editions, his status today in the repertoire is considerably small, based (in the West) primarily on some of his piano and chamber music (such as the violin and piano piece called Orientale (op. 50, No. 9)) and a number of solo songs. The received wisdom that he is not a particularly talented composer, at least for large genres, has been cited as a cause for this state of affairs; his strongest talent is said to lie in the crystallization of mood at an instant as captured in his art songs and instrumental miniatures. Although his abilities as an orchestrator, too, have been disparaged (notably by his compatriot Rimsky-Korsakov), some recent recordings (e.g., of his one-act opera Feast in Time of Plague, from Pushkin) suggest that Cui's dramatic music might be more interesting to pursue with regard to this feature.
Cui's works are not so nationalistic as those of the other members of The Five; with the exception of Pushkin, his operas do not display a strong attraction to Russian sources. In the area of art song, however, the vast majority of Cui's vocal music is based on Russian texts. Overt attempts at Russian "folk" musical style can be detected in passages from his first act of the collaborative Mlada (1872), The Captain's Daughter, a couple of the children's operas, and a few songs; many other passages in his music reflect the stylistic curiosities associated with Russian art music of the 19th century, such as whole tone scales and certain harmonic devices. Nevertheless, his style is more often compared to Robert Schumann and to French composers such as Gounod than to Mikhail Glinka or to Cui's Russian contemporaries.

Music of Cui from Youtube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=maGVutLuRNo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJ7G9na-a6w

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p9UwSs46EQ

More music in YouTube

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Spanish Composer Ernesto Halffter (1905-1989)

Ernesto Halffter Escriche (Madrid, 16 January 1905 – Madrid, 5 July 1989) is one of the most important Spanish composers of the twentieth century. Yet he considered himself modestly, just as a pupil of Manuel de Falla, whom he admired, both as an artist and as a morally exemplary human being. Nevertheless, Halffter was aware of his all-round musical talent, and that he was not lacking in ideas.
His father, Ernest Halffter Hein, a Prussian jeweller, who had settled in Madrid and married a Spaniard, Rosario Escriche Erradón, was completely supportive of the idea of his eldest and third-born sons, Rodolfo and Ernesto, choosing music as a profession. Perhaps this interest in music was inherited from their grandparents, Andalusians hailing from Écija (Seville), who were both opera lovers, while, according to Yolanda Acker, the musicologist and specialist in the works of Ernesto Halffter, their grandfather, Emilio Escriche, was also an excellent painter.
Ernesto began his education at the Colegio Alemán in Madrid and soon stood out in the world of music, as did his brother Rodolfo, for whom he wrote opera libretti. His earliest composition dates from 1911, when he was just six years old. In 1922 Ernesto’s piano teacher, the Hungarian Fernando Ember, performed his pupil’s first piano works, including the three pieces from Crepúsculos at the Ritz Hotel in Madrid. A short time later after their first meeting in 1923, the young Halffter sent Falla the score of his Trio for violin, violoncello and piano, on which the Andalusian composer, wrote “Bravo!”
Crepúsculos already showed signs of the great composer who, at the of age twenty, would receive the Premio Nacional de Música for his splendid Sinfonietta, a prize he would again be awarded in 1983 for his ‘continuous contribution to Spanish music’. This piano triptych was initially titled Tres piezas líricas (Three Lyric Pieces). The composer wrote a program for the first, El viejo reloj del castillo (The Old Castle Clock), which might have been based on one of the legends by the great romantic poet Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer, whose Rimas (Rhymes) Albéniz, Falla and Turina turned into very beautiful songs. According to the critic Adolfo Salazar, the third, Una ermita en el bosque (A Hermitage in the Forest), had a certain rural flavour in the style of Granados. The second, Lullaby, reflects the impressionism Ernesto experienced several years later, from 1926 to 1928, in the Paris of Les Six. Halffter felt a close affinity to some of its members such as Poulenc, Auric and Milhaud. In Madrid he also formed part of the group of composers representing the so-called ‘Generation of 27’ or ‘of the Republic’, the famous literary (and musical) group launched during the very creative Roaring 20s, which dominated Spanish music until 1936. The group was based around the Residencia de Estudiantes, the institution derived from the very liberal, lay, and innovative Institución Libre de Enseñanza.
The premiere of the Marche joyeuse took place at the Residencia de Estudiantes in 1922. This piece is admirable for its charm and modern spirit, much in keeping with that of the generation of writers and artists featuring García Lorca, Buñuel, Dalí, Gerardo Diego, Aleixandre, etc. It was published with a cover by Salvador Dalí and soon formed part of the repertory of the famous Artur Rubinstein. Halffter reveals his very clever and ingenious use of bitonality and a varied array of rhythms.
In 1926 Halffter began composing his Sonata per pianoforte, which would not be completed until six years later. It could be described as a modern version of Scarlatti or of the spirit behind the Spanish harpsichord school. But upon closer listening, there are traces of a composer who, without discarding his customary joviality, is capable of revealing a side to his music that was as serious and profound as that of his admired Falla. It could also be a disguised homage to Granados, clearly cited towards the end of the Sonata, in both his Goyesque and Scarlattian aspects. The Sonata per pianoforte, dedicated to Janine Cools, was given its premiere by the pianist, Leopoldo Querol, in Madrid in May 1934. This was the only sonata of the three Halffter was required to compose in a contract he signed with the publishing house Max Eschig of Paris, of which the composer Eugène Cools (1877-1936) was Director.
L’espagnolade formed part of the album Parc d’attractions, a collective homage to the French pianist and teacher Marguerite Long (1874-1966), which took place at the 1937 Paris Exposition. This involved numerous foreign composers who resided in Paris at the time, including Tibor Harsányi (1898-1954), Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Bohuslav MartinÛ (1890-1959), Marcel Mihalovici (1898-1985), Frederic Mompou (1893-1987), Vittorio Rieti (1898-1994), Alexandre Tansman (1897-1986) and Alexander Tcherepnin (1899-1977). L’espagnolade is an ironic pasodoble, a charming imitation of an Andalusian musical form that flourished during the mid-nineteenth century. The premiere, given at the Salle Gaveau in Paris in 1938, was entrusted to the French pianist, Nicole Henriot (1925-2001), one of Marguerite Long’s favourite pupils.
Grüss (salute, greeting) follows the tradition of the German romantic Lied. The composer himself did not consider the piece to be of the slightest importance and never published it himself as he believed composers of his generation would not take it seriously. However, it exudes an intimate charm like that of other pieces of the same genre by Mendelssohn, Schumann, Gade or Grieg. It is as if it had been composed in 1840 instead of 1940. The title reveals its obvious Germanic precedents (similar to a romance without words, album leaf, or lyric piece), but it was also a Christmas greeting for his father, Herr Ernest Halffter. Max Eschig published Grüss in 1994.
In 1943 the composer (married to Alicia Camara Santos, the Portuguese pianist, since 1928), composed incidental music to Carlos Salvagem’s heroic farce Dulcinea, premiered at the Teatro Nacional in Lisbon in January 1944. Halffter arranged the work into a symphonic suite, presented in Madrid on 9 December 1945 during a benefit concert for the Press Association at the Teatro Monumental, when the composer himself conducted the Orquesta Sinfónica Arbós. The work consists of various parts, Preludio y alborada, Los pastores, Nocturnos, Serenata, and Final. As well as a version for violoncello transcribed by Gaspar Cassadó, and a piano and violoncello transcription by Maurice Gendron, the penultimate Serenata was also arranged for the piano. In ternary form, the opening section evokes the plucking of the guitar, accompanying a short melody whose text could well be You are my love, Dulcinea. In the centre section, there is a sad and desolate nocturne, in which the guitar strums while Don Quixote serenades his beloved, a peasant whom the knight believes to be a princess.
“Cuba had been lost and now it was true. It wasn’t a lie…”, wrote Rafael Alberti in his evocative poem Cuba dentro de un piano (Cuba Inside a Piano), which Xavier Montsalvatge so beautifully set to music. But a shattered, post-war Spain began to miss the gem of the West Indies, though Cuban influence was still felt as is very clear in the Pregón, with its Afro-Cuban and Spanish rhythms. And even more so in the Habanera, one of those well-written works that cannot be forgotten, even on a single hearing. This straightforward beautiful piece exudes the indolence and drowsiness provoked by the warm Caribbean climate with melancholic naturalness. Both the Pregón and the Habanera are featured in the film Bambú. Directed by José Luis Sáenz de Heredia, it is a love story set in Spanish Cuba during the period of its independence following the war between Spain and the United States in 1898. The film, starring Imperio Argentina, Sara Montiel, Fernando Fernán-Gómez and Luis Peña, was premiered in Madrid on 15 October 1945. Regino Sainz de la Maza, the guitarist who premiered Rodrigo’s Concierto de Aranjuez, also appeared in the movie.
Preludio y danza, composed for the inauguration of the Alonso Ortiz family house at El Escorial, dates from June 1974 (being premiered in the new house by Manuel Carra on the 11th of that month). It consists of two sections of the same length, including a Prelude in the style of the eighteenth-century recercadas by Sebastián Albero (1722-1756), slightly austere despite being very arpeggiated and finishing with a cadenza. This is followed by a very Halffterian dance of a characteristically Spanish nature.
Ernesto Halffter began writing Suite lírica in 1940 during his Lisbon period, reflected in works such as Rapsodia portuguesa and Seis canciones portuguesas. But the extract titled Llanto por Ricardo Viñes was probably composed between 29 April (the date of Viñes’s death in Barcelona), and 20 December 1943, the day it was premiered by the Portuguese pianist, Elena da Costa.
Federico Sopeña was fully justified when he commented that ‘the history of modern music (i.e. the first half of the twentieth century) could not be written without Ricardo Viñes’. A number of very significant twentieth-century piano compositions were dedicated to Ricardo Viñes Roda (1875-1943) and he himself premiered a great number of works. Educated in Lérida, his native city, and later in Barcelona under Joan Baptista Pujol (piano) and Pedrell (harmony), in 1890 he launched a career that would lead him to form part of the principal artistic and intellectual circles of Paris, where Halffter benefited from his expertise and friendship. Viñes, a man of vast musical and literary culture, was described by Professor Tomás Andrade de Silva as ‘the most unique pianist Spain ever had, both for his intimate awareness of sonority and for the inspired architectural conception of his interpretations’. Llanto por Ricardo Viñes, which did so much for Spanish music abroad, is the Madrilenian composer’s sad and solemn lament for the great Catalonian pianist. In the style of pieces Falla dedicated to Debussy and Dukas, its arpeggiated chords give a somewhat medieval atmosphere to the opening of the work. The poetic chords and sombre motives that follow signify a serene farewell.
Although Spanish keyboard music was already very advanced by the end of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries with composers such as Cabanilles and Rodríguez Monllor, the work of Domenico Scarlatti (1685-1757) provided a tremendous inspiration, as can be seen in the music of Antonio Soler and others. Nationalistic piano music, from Granados to Falla, Rodolfo Halffter, Rodrigo and Ernesto Halffter, paid special attention to the Neapolitan genius. The presence of Scarlattian elements could already be perceived in the composer’s early music as well as in the famous Sinfonietta and Sonatina. Sonata homenaje a Scalatti presents a musical form similar to those created by the the Italian musician at the Spanish court, transformed into the neo-baroque aesthetic of the twentieth century. Genoveva Gálvez gave the premiere at the Prado Museum, Madrid, on 14 September 1985, the year of Scarlatti’s bicentenary. Towards the end of the sonata, Halffter quotes the theme from the well-known Cat’s Fugue from D. Scarlatti’s Sonata in G minor K. 30. Genoveva Gálvez played the work on the harpsichord, which seems closer to the composer being celebrated, but Halffter conceived the work for piano, and this justifies its performance on either instrument.
I had the privilege of hearing the composer himself perform Nocturno otoñal: recordando a Chopin, at his last home in Madrid. To commemorate the centenary in 1987 of the birth of Artur Rubinstein (1887-1982), the founder of the Santander International Piano Competition, Paloma O’Shea, commissioned a series of works in homage to the great Polish pianist, one of the most eminent performers of Chopin’s music. In this work, written in the autumn of his life (he died two years later in Madrid on 5 July 1989), Ernesto expressed the melancholy of time irremediably running out.
But Halffter would still complete three piano pieces in homage to the memory of three Spanish colleagues and friends – llian Joaquín Turina (1882-1949) of Seville, Federico Mompou (1893-1987) of Barcelona, and his brother, Rodolfo Halffter (1900-1987) from Madrid. Guillermo González premiered all three works, the first two during the inauguration of the Manuel de Falla Archive in Granada (9 March 1981), and Homenaje a Rodolfo Halffter at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes, Madrid (5 December 1992).

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French Composer Cecile Chaminade (1857-1944)

Cécile Louise Stéphanie Chaminade (August 8, 1857 – April 13, 1944) was a French composer and pianist.
Biography

Born in Paris, she studied at first with her mother, then with Félix Le Couppey, Augustin Savard, Martin Pierre Marsick and Benjamin Godard, but not officially, since her father disapproved of her musical education.
Her first experiments in composition took place in very early days, and in her eighth year she played some of her sacred music to Georges Bizet, who was much impressed with her talents. She gave her first concert when she was eighteen, and from that time on her work as a composer gained steadily in favor. She wrote mostly character pieces for piano, and salon songs, almost all of which were published.
She toured France several times in those earlier days, and in 1892 made her début in England, where her work was extremely popular.
Chaminade married a music publisher from Marseilles, Louis-Mathieu Carbonel, in 1901, and on account of his advanced age the marriage was rumored to be one of convenience. He died in 1907, and Chaminade did not remarry.
In 1908 she visited the United States, and was accorded a very hearty welcome from her innumerable admirers there. Her compositions were tremendous favorites with the American public, and such pieces as the Scarf dance or the Ballet No. 1 were to be found in the music libraries of many lovers of piano music of the time. She composed a Konzertstück for piano and orchestra, the ballet music to Callirhoé and other orchestral works. Her songs, such as The Silver Ring and Ritournelle, were also great favorites. Ambroise Thomas, the celebrated French composer and writer, once said of Chaminade: "This is not a woman who composes, but a composer who is a woman." In 1913, she was awarded the Légion d'Honneur, a first for a female composer. In London, 1903, she made gramophone recordings of six of her compositions for the Gramophone and Typewriter Company; these are among the most sought-after piano recordings by collectors. Before and after World War I, Chaminade recorded many piano rolls, but as she grew older, she composed less and less, dying in Monte Carlo on April 13, 1944.
Chaminade was relegated to obscurity for the second half of the 20th Century, her piano pieces and songs mostly forgotten, with the Flute Concertino, composed for the 1902 Paris Conservatoire Concours, her most popular piece today.
Her sister married Moritz Moszkowski.
Works
Works with Opus number

Op. 3, Scherzo-etude Op. 4, Caprice-etude Op. 5, Menuet Op. 6, Berceuse Op. 7, Barcarolle Op. 8, chaconne (1879) Op. 9, 2 pieces: 1 (G) pièce romantique (1880)2 Gavotte Op. 10, Scherzando Op. 11, piano trio #1 (g): 1 allegro; 2 andante; 3 presto leggiero; 4 allegro molto agitato (1881) Op. 12, pastorale enfantine {arr marcus} (1881) Op. 18, capriccio for violin and piano (1881) Op. 19, Le sevillane Ouverture Op. 21, sonata (c): 1 allegro appassionato; 2 andante; 3 allegro (1881) Op. 22, Orientale Op. 23, minuetto (b) (1881) Op. 24, libellules (Dragon Flies) (1881) Op. 25, Deux morceaux: 1 duetto; 2 zingara; Op. 28, étude symphonique (B–) (1883) Op. 29, sérénade (D) (1884) Op. 30, air de ballet (G) (1884) Op. 32, guitare (1885) Op. 33, Valse caprice (1885) Op. 35, 6 études de concert: 1 (C) scherzo; 2 (D–)automne; 3 fileuse; 4 Appasionato 5 (F) impromptu; 6 (D) tarantelle(1886) Op. 34, piano trio #2 (a): 1 allegro moderato; 2 lento; 3 allegro energico (1887) Op. 36, 2 pieces: 2 pas des cymbales (1887) Op. 37, 5 Airs de Ballet : 1 danse oriental; 2 Pas des amphores; 3 Pas des echarpes; 4 Callirhöe;5 Danse pastorale(1888) Op. 38, Marine (1887) Op. 39, toccata (1887) Op. 40, Concertpiece for piano and orchestra Op. 41, air de ballet. pierrette (E–) (1889) Op. 42, Les Willis,caprice (1889) Op. 43, gigue (D) (1889) Op. 50, la lisonjera (G–) (1890) Op. 51, La livry,air de ballet (1890?) Op. 52, Capriccio appassionato (1890) Op. 53, arlequine (F) (1890) Lolita (Caprice espagnole), Op. 54Op. 54, caprice espagnole. lolita (D–) (1890) Op. 55, 6 pièces romantiques: 6 rigaudon (1890) Op. 56, Scaramouche (1890) Op. 57, Havanaise (1891) Op. 58, Mazurk-Suedoise (1891) Op. 60, les sylvains (1892) Op. 61, arabesque (1892) Op. 66, Studio (1892) Op. 67, caprice espagnole. la morena (1892) Op. 73, valse carnavalesque (1894) Op. 74, Pièce dans le style ancien (1893) Op. 75, Danse ancienne (1893) Op. 76, 6 romances sans paroles: 1 souvenance; 2 (E) élévation; 3 idylle; 4 eglogue; 5 chanson brétonne; 6 méditation (1894) Op. 77, deuxieme vals(1895) Op. 78, Prelude (1895) Op. 80, Troisieme valse brillante (1898) Op. 81, Terpsichore, sexieme air de ballet (1896) Op. 82, Chanson napolitaine (1896) Op. 83, Ritournelle (1896) Op. 84, Trois prèludes melodiques (1896) Op. 85, Vert-Galant (1896) Op. 86, romances sans paroles: 1 souvenance; 2 élévation; Op. 87, 6 pièces humoristiques: 2 sous bois; 3 inquiétude; 4 autrefois; 5 consolation; 6 norwegienne (1897) Op. 88, Rimembranza (1898) Op. 89, thème varié (A) (1898) Op. 90, Legende (1898) Op. 91, waltz #4 (D–) (1898) Op. 92, Deuxieme arabesque (1898) Op. 93, Valse humoristique (1906) Op. 94, havanaise #2 danse créole (1898) Op. 95, Trois dances anciennes: 1 passepied; 2 pavane; 3 courante; (1899) Op. 97, rondeaus for violin and piano (1899) Op. 98, 6 feuillets d’album: 1 promenade; 2 scherzetto; 3 (D–) élégie; 4 valse arabesque 5 chanson russe; 6 rondo allegre (1900) Op. 101, l’ondine (1900) Op. 103, Moment musical (1900) Op. 104, tristesse (c+) (1901) Op. 105, divertissement (1901) Op. 106, Expansion (1901) Op. 107, Concertino for Flute & Orchestra in D major(1902) Op. 108, Agitato (1902) Op. 109, Cinquieme valse (1903) Op. 110, Novelette (1902) Op. 111, Souvenir lointains (1911) Op. 112, sixieme valse, valse-ballet (1904) Op. 113, Caprice humoristique (1904) Op. 114, pastorale (1904) Op. 115, waltz #7 valse romantique (1905) Op. 116, sous le masque (1905) Op. 118, étude mélodique (G–) (1906) Op. 119, valse tendre (F) (1906) Op. 120, Variations sur un theme original(1906) Op. 122, 3 contes blues: 2 (1906) Op. 123, album d’enfants: 2 (A–) intermezzo. pas de sylphes; 4 (F) rondeau; 5 (a) gavotte; 9 (e) orientale; 10 (a) tarantelle (1906) Op. 124, étude pathetique (b) (1906) Op. 126, album d’enfants: 1 (C) idylle; 2 (E) aubade; 3 (a) rigaudon; 4 (G) eglogue; 5 (g) ballade; 6 (D) scherzo-valse; 7 (d) élégie; 8 (F) novelette 9 (g) patrouille; 10 (A) villanelle; 11 (a) conte de fées; 12 (B-) valse mignonne (1907) Op. 127, 4 poèmes provençales: 2 solitude; 3 (D–) le passé; 4 pêcheurs de nuit (1908) Op. 130, passacaille (E) (1909) Op. 134, la retour (1909) Op. 137, romance (D) (1910) Op. 139, étude scholastique (1910) Op. 143, cortège (A) (1911) Op. 148, scherzo-valse (1913) Op. 155, au pays dévasté (1919) Op. 158, danse païenne (1919) Op. 164, air à danser (1923) Op. 150, sérénade espagnole (G) (1925) Op. 165, nocturne (1925)

Works without Opus number

Chaminade at the keyboard

Les Rêves (1876) Te souviens-tu? (1878) Auprès de ma mie (1888) voisinage (1888) Nice-la-belle (1889) Rosemonde (1890) L'Anneau d’argent (1891) Plaintes d’amour (1891) Viens, mon bien-aimé! (1892) L'Amour captif (1893) Ma première lettre (1893) Malgré nous! (1893) Si j’étais jardinier (1893) L'Été (1894) Mignonne (1894) Sombrero (1894) Villanelle (1894) Espoir (1895) Ronde d’amour (1895) Chanson triste (1898) Mots d’amour (1898) Alleluia (1901) Écrin! (1902) Bonne Humeur! (1903) Menuet (1904) La Lune paresseuse (1905) Je voudrais (1912) Attente. au pays de provence (1914)

See and Listen some works of cecile from YouTube

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wp2UnpdwF7k

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-dyxAyRrFkE

Enjoy the music of this less known musician!!!!

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Australian Composer Ross Edwards

Ross Edwards (born 23 December 1943) is an Australian composer of a wide variety of music including orchestral and chamber music, choral music, children's music, opera and film music.

Life

Ross Edwards was born in Sydney. He received his early musical education at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, completing his Master of Music degree at the University of Adelaide and graduating as Doctor of Music from the University of Sydney. His teachers have included Peter Sculthorpe, for whom he later worked as an assistant, Richard Meale, Sandor Veress and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, with whom he studied in Adelaide and again in London in the early 1970s. Returning to Australia, he held teaching positions at the University of Sydney and the Sydney Conservatorium before becoming a freelance composer in 1980.
Among many awards, he considers two Keating Fellowships received in the 1990s to have been crucial to his development. He is based in Sydney, where he lives with his wife, Helen, spending as much time as possible working in his studio in the Blue Mountains, west of the city.

Works

Ross Edwards’ output includes symphonies, concertos, chamber and vocal music, children’s music, film scores, opera and music for dance.
Well known compositions include his Piano Concerto (1982; premiered in 1983 by Dennis Hennig and the Queensland Symphony Orchestra under Werner Andreas Albert); a violin concerto titled Maninyas (dedicated to and premiered by Dene Olding); and a symphony Da pacem domine. His Oboe Concerto, which includes choreography for the oboist-cum-dancer, was premiered in 2002 by Diana Doherty under the baton of Lorin Maazel. Maazel invited her to play and dance it with the New York Philharmonic in 2005, and the concerto and Doherty have since become world-famous.
Works designed for the concert hall sometimes require special lighting, movement, costume and visual accompaniment.

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Contemporary Finish Composer Kalevi Aho (b.1949)

Kalevi Aho

(b. 1949) entered the limelight in the early 1970s, and soon established his position as one of the leading Finnish composers of his generation. His early works are characterized by a vigorous Neo-classical idiom showing the influence of Shostakovich. In the course of the 1970s, however, Aho progressively moved away from his beginnings, and his ‘Modern’ style culminated in the Sixth Symphony at the end of the decade. From the beginning of the 1980s, Aho’s stylistic aims have varied from work to work, depending on the ‘content’ and ‘message’ of the music: in some pieces, Aho combines heterogeneous elements in a deliberately ‘Post-Modern’ spirit; in others, his approach is either distinctly modern or more traditional.

Aho can be considered a kindred spirit of Mahler — or, among present-day composers, of Alfred Schnittke. Like Mahler, Aho seeks ambiguity — ‘the aesthetic of impurity’ — through irony and parody, the juxtaposition of opposing emotional states (such as sublimity and banality), a mixture of styles, stylistic loans and a stylized use of different musical genres (such as waltzes, marches and fanfares).

Aho’s works tend to take the shape of musical narratives reminiscent of psychological processes; the composer himself has used the term ‘abstract plot’. Instead of following given formal patterns, each work sets up its own form, governed by the logic of narrative, with its own positive and negative flows of power. Characteristic of this music are magnified climaxes with something of the character of decisive battles.

Emotive content and eloquence are essential properties of music to Aho: “For me music, at least great music, is a manifestation of emotions and the soul. In music, I hear the speech of one human being to another; I hear his joy, sorrow, happiness, desperation. In a composition as a whole, I hear his attitude to life, his philosophy, his world view — his message.”

Aho’s breakthrough

came with the First Symphony (1969) and Second String Quartet (1970). It says something of the composer’s precocious ability to handle extensive forms that he also completed his Second Symphony (1970) before obtaining his diploma in composition in 1971. His debut was portentous inasmuch as symphonies and large-scale chamber music works would dominate his output throughout the 1970s.

Aho’s early works were characterized by contrapuntal writing, which is very much to the fore in the serious opening and closing movements of the Symphony no. 1, fugal in structure and reminiscent of Shostakovich. The second movement is an ironic waltz and the third a curiously stylized version of Baroque. The Symphony no. 2 consists of a single movement built up as an extended triple fugue, with three different fugue themes giving rise to three main sections of highly varied character. In the climax, the themes appear simultaneously, after which the work ends with a Mahleresque funeral march.

The String Quartet no. 2 is symmetrical in form, with a fast movement — featuring frequent tempo shifts and dense harmonies somewhat reminiscent of Bartók — sandwiched between two slow movements. The String Quartet no. 3 (1971), played without pause, carries symmetry one step further, for after reaching the midpoint the music turns around and returns, altered, to the beginning. In the closing passage, the material used in the opening is transformed into a cruel parody of itself. The Quintet for Oboe and String Quartet (1973) is a more musicianly and faster-paced work than the string quartets.

In the Third (1971–73) and Fourth (1972–73) Symphonies, the Neoclassicism of Aho’s early work is beginning to crumble. The musical material is more complex, the emotional range wider and the contrasts more violent. The very sound of the work is rougher, the surface more ragged. The idea of the ‘abstract plot’ gains increasing prominence.

Symphony no. 3 is subtitled Sinfonia concertante no. 1, in reference to the work’s extensive, demanding solo violin part. The cadenza-like first and last movements, scored for a small ensemble, frame two middle movements, the first of which is a tremendous duel between the violin and orchestra and the second an elegy for orchestra only. Symphony no. 4, like the First and Second, opens with a fugato, the theme of which furnishes the principal motif of the whole symphony. Otherwise the use of traditional counterpoint has diminished significantly. The most striking departure from the composer’s earlier stylistic range is the passage for winds in the final movement, mere bubbling surface in form. After the Fourth Symphony, the direct influence of Shostakovich can no longer be discerned in Aho’s music.

For the violin, his own instrument, Aho composed the technically demanding Sonata for violin (1973), which pays homage, at least structurally, to Bartók’s use of the genre, opening as it does with a free chaconne and culminating in a fugue on the theme B–A–C–H. An even more violently virtuosic work for solo violin is Solo I (1975). Aho later composed equally demanding pieces for piano (Solo II, 1985) and flute (Solo III, 1990–91).

One of Aho’s key works

is the massive Symphony no. 5 (1975–76), which rises to chaotic climaxes. While this work presents a synthesis of the various stylistic influences of Aho’s early works, its complex textural technique and dissonances constitute a step in the direction of Modernism. In an effort to express life’s contradictions, Aho builds up the work from simultaneous ‘component musics’ or levels, replacing the polyphony of melodies with the ‘polyphony of independent musicians’. The components range stylistically from late Romanticism to cluster technique.

The works completed in the wake of the Fifth Symphony — Chamber Symphony no. 1 (1976), Quintet for Flute, Oboe and String Trio (1977) and the Bassoon Quintet (1977) — also display Aho’s new, expanded stylistic range. The first movement of the Quintet for Bassoon and String Quartet is a parody of the classic opera overture, the second of a Schubertian accompanying figure. As the work advances, parody and humour cede to a tragic view of life, finally disintegrating in a resigned, fragmentary music of the void.

Symphony no. 6 (1979–80) brought the consistent ‘modernization’ of Aho’s music to its logical conclusion. In the first and third of the symphony’s four movements, sweeping melodies based on bold intervals collide with massive, block-like chords. Some tone fields vaguely reminiscent of Ligeti also appear. The pointillistically delicate, aphoristic second movement brings Webern to mind, at least in sound if not in structure. Microintervals are used here and in the finale as building material for a static pianissimo field. The short orchestral piece Hiljaisuus (Silence, 1982) carries on with the field technique.

The Sixth Symphony was followed by an eight-year break in Aho’s symphonic output. He wished to find a completely new approach to symphonic form.

In the 1970s,

Aho composed several choral works and one song cycle, but made the most verstaile use of the potential of vocal music in the ‘stage monologue’ Avain (The Key, 1978–79). Unlike the national themes of other Finnish operas of the 1970s, Aho’s work is urban, existential-psychological in tone, and painting a landscape of an anxious, lonely soul and its surroundings. The soliloquy of the only character, the translator Johannes Pontto, passes from ordinary speech through various intermediate forms to aria-like singing, as the protagonist himself slips from full awareness ever deeper into a world of fantasy and the subconscious.

Aho has continued to take an interest in the opera form. For an invitational competition for new operas arranged by the Savonlinna Opera Festival, he composed Hyönteiselämää (Insect Life) to a libretto adapted by the composer from a play by Karel and Josef Capek. At the time of writing [1994], he was working on an opera commissioned for the small stage of the Finnish National Opera.

Aho described Hyönteiselämää as ‘a comic opera with a tragic ending about narcissism, self-indulgence, and self-interest’. In this satire on modern times, the insects, observed by a drunken tramp, represent various human types and aspects of human chracter. Each is represented by its own characteristic musical style; together they cover a wider range than any other work of Aho’s.

Aho reworked the fairly independent orchestral score into his Symphony no. 7 (‘Insect Symphony’, 1988). This work includes stylized variations on the foxtrot, tango, waltz and march. In the form of a suite in six movements, the work has none of the ‘abstract plot’ typical of Aho’s earlier symphonies. The form could be compared rather with a wedge opening outward, as the worlds depicted by the various movements draw away from one another.

Despite of its comic elements, Hyönteiselämää is intrinsically a serious, highly committed work. A similar humane message is conveyed by Pergamon (1990), a work for four voices reading in four different languages, four groups on instruments and organ, composed for the 350th anniversary of the University of Helsinki. The performers were placed in four groups in different parts of the concert hall. The work consists of grating clusters which, as the composer pointed out, ‘are well suited to expressing anguish rigidified in stone’, as depicted by the renowned Pergamon Altar, discovered in Turkey and taken to Berlin. The text is from Peter Weiss’s Die Ästhetik des Widerstands (The Aesthetic of Resistance).

After the Sixth Symphony,

no genre has dominated Aho’s work like symphonies and chamber music did in the 1970s. The Modernism of the Sixth Symphony is merely one dimension of an ever broader stylistic range.

The Piano Sonata (1980) was Aho’s first work for piano solo. Before starting to work on it, he made a thorough study of the piano music of Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Bartók, Messiaen and others, creating a work of genuine virtuosity based on their pianistic vocabulary. Sonata for Accordion no. 1 (1984–89), with its dramatic climaxes and clusters; owing to the extreme technical demands, the composer produced a version for two accordions (1984–1989). He has also composed a second sonata for accordion (1990), subtitled ‘Black Birds’.

The Quartet for flute, alto saxophone, guitar and percussion (1982) explores the potential for communication between instruments of very different character. The effort to bring them closer together gave rise to unusual playing techniques, such as bowing of the guitar and vibraphone. The central premise of the Sonata for oboe and piano (1985) is the opposition between the conventional sound of the ‘normal’ world and the music of a ‘distorted’ world to which, e.g. microintervals lend colour.

Aho’s principal works in the 1980s included three concertos. The Concerto for violin and orchestra (1981), in three movements, opens with flowing melodies à la Alban Berg and culminates in a splendid but ultimately shattered waltz, ending with a delicately melancholy lullaby. Compared with the nostalgically tinged earlier work, the Concerto for cello and orchestra (1983–84) is modern and searingly pessimistic. Whereas the Violin Concerto struck a balance between soloist and orchestra, in the Cello Concerto the soloist is utterly crushed. The piece makes use of a variety of modern textures. The tremendous climax of the second movement is followed by a grotesque final section which falls into total emptiness.

The formal idea of the four-movement Concerto for piano and orchestra (1988–89) is a kind of voyage to the depths, ever farther from the starting point towards new dimensions. The soloist acts as a guide on this journey, and has a more central role than in either of the earlier concertos, if only because of the more powerful sound produced by the instrument. According to the composer, the musical material is largely based on cyclical 16-digit and 30-digit numbers of the duodecimal system and on 16-tone and 30-tone rows derived from them.

Aho’s Eighth and Ninth Symphonies also have extensive solo passages. Symphony no. 8 (1993), one of Aho’s chief works, is scored for organ and orchestra. The challenging organ score has many different functions: sometimes it reinforces the individual instruments, then adopts a solo role, elsewhere still accompanying the climaxes with its enormous potential for volume. Played without pause, the work consists of three rapid scherzi rising to powerful climaxes, alternating with three interludes for solo organ. The general tone of the work is sanguine; even the most tragic events do not lead to pessimism, seeming to lend the music new strength and resistance instead.

The three-movement Symphony no. 9 (1994), subtitled Sinfonia concertante no. 2, is scored for trombone and orchestra. Aho composed it with the Swedish virtuoso Christian Lindberg in mind. Compared with the ponderous Eight, it displays a lighter touch, with music skimming back and forth in time. The music of the ‘present’ frequently drifts into critical situations resolved by a sudden shift into another period and a new world altogether.

In his monumental tenth symphony (1996)

Aho rejects the solo element in favour of a return to a purely orchestral idiom. While covering a broad expressive range, the work does not play with styles in the way the previous symphony did. Its composition was to some extent prompted by a performance by the Lahti Symphony Orchestra of Mozart’s 39th symphony, the result being a work rich in melody that is highly rewarding for the strings. The tenth is also the first Aho symphony in which the traditional four-movement symphonic form can be discerned (an opening allegro, scherzo, slow movement and energetic finale). The weightiest movement is the slow one of broad sweeping spans, accounting for almost half of the total duration. Aho has since written an eleventh symphony, for six percussion instruments and orchestra (1997–98), commissioned for performance in the new Lahti concert hall in the year 2000.

The chamber music streak has also remained to the fore in Aho’s output of the 1990s. The most significant works in this genre are the quintet for an unusual combination of instruments (alto saxophone, bassoon, viola, cello and double bass, 1994) and the clarinet quintet (1998). Acting in the nature of a link between the symphonies and chamber music are the two chamber symphonies dating from the 1990s. The second chamber symphony (1991–92) is a virtuosic, expressionistic work for 20 strings and the third (1995–96), again for 20 strings but with a solo saxophone as well, was written expressly for the American John-Edward Kelly. One of the sources of inspiration for this work was the melodic heterophony of Arabic music.

The symphonies are an extremely dominant element of Aho’s orchestral music. One rare exception to this monumental line of works is the orchestral fantasy Syvien vesien juhla (The Rejoicing of the Deep Waters, 1995) marked by quick shifts of mood and striking force. Musically it ties in closely with the opera Ennen kuin me kaikki olemme hukkuneet (Before We Are All Drowned) commissioned by the Finnish National Opera and to be premiered in 2001.

All in all

Aho has been closely involved with opera in the late 1990s. His opera Hyönteiselämää (Insect Life) was premiered at the Finnish National Opera in autumn 1996, though it had been composed in 1985–87. For the first performance Aho composed some new electronic music for the battle forming the climax of the opera. The work got good reviews and was a box-office success. In 1998 Aho also composed Salaisuuksien kirja (The Book of Secrets) for an opera entitled Aika ja uni (Time and Dream) commissioned from three composers by the Savonlinna Opera Festival for the millennium season. The other two composers in this unusual project are Herman Rechberger and Olli Kortekangas and the libretto is by Paavo Rintala.

© Kimmo Korhonen (1999)

(translated by © Susan Sinisalo)

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Argentinian Contemporary Composer-Gerardo Gandini (b.1936)

Composer, pianist and conductor, born in Buenos Aires in October 16, 1936.
He studied composition with Alberto Ginastera and then at the Santa Cecilia Academy in Rome with Goffredo Petrassi. He studied piano under the guidance of Pía Sebastiani, Roberto Caamaño and Ivonne Loriod.
He has written more than 120 works, ranging from symphonic, chamber music, opera, music theater to film scores or music for solo instruments. He is also an outstanding composer for the solo piano repertoire.
As composer, he has received several distinctions and scholarships. Among the latter, one awarded by the Italian government in Rome, 1966, and the Guggenheim grant in 1982. He obtained the municipal composition Prize (Buenos Aires, 1960), the first prize at the international contest organized by the Congress for Cultural Freedom (Rome, 1962), and the Molière Prize in 1977, awarded by the French government for his theatre music. In 1998 he obtained at the Venice Film Festival the Golden Lion for best original music with the film “La nube”, directed by Fernando Solanas; also the Argentinean Association of Movie Critics (Asociación de Cronistas Cinematográficos) awarded him the Silver Condor prize for the same work. In 2004, he obtained the Latin Grammy Award for his record “Postangos en vivo en Rosario” (Post-tangos, Live in Rosario).
He collaborated as pianist with Astor Piazzolla and participated of the extended European and American Tours in which the famous Argentinean musician performed with his last ensemble.
During the 90’s, parallel to his usual activity in symphonic and chamber music, Gandini proposed a different pianistic view of the traditional tangos, the “Postangos”. Besides offering many concerts, an activity that he endures nowadays, this work was registered in two CDs: “Postangos” (Testigo, 1995) and “Postangos en vivo en Rosario” (EPSA, 2003), for which he obtained the Latin Grammy Award in 2004.
In 1996, the Argentinean National Fund for Arts honored him with a Career Award and in that same year he received the National Music Prize in Argentina for the opera “La ciudad ausente” (The absent city). Gerardo Gandini is number academician in the National Academy of Fine Arts.
Many of his works were recorded, among them: the “Impromptu Fantasy”, by the Louisville Orchestra (USA), for which the composer performed as piano soloist; “Soria Moria” and “Balada”, by Camerata Bariloche; Fantasy for clarinet and piano, recorded by Mariano Frogioni and the author himself; Night Music IV for guitar and string quartet, performed by Irma Constanzo and the Universidad de La Plata quartet. His disc “Personal Anthology” brings together his most remarkable works for the piano.
He has composed three operas: “La casa sin sosiego” (The unquiet house), with a text by Griselda Gambaro (first auditioned in 1992), “La ciudad ausente” (The absent city, 1995), libretto by Ricardo Piglia from his homonymous novel, and “Liederkreis” (An opera about Schumann) (2000), with a libretto by Alejandro Tantanian.
He has been a professor at the Juilliard School of Music, in New York, at the Di Tella Institute (Buenos Aires), the Conservatoire of La Plata (Argentina), advisor for the National Arts Fund in Argentina, and Director of the Center for Studies in Contemporary Music at the Argentinean Catholic University.
He has directed a number of orchestras and chamber instrumental ensembles which gave first auditions of many works by Argentinean composers, especially those of the younger generations. Among these ensembles is the Sinfonietta of the Omega Seguros Foundation, of which he was both founder and director.
He was in charge of the Contemporary Music courses at the Goethe-Institut in Buenos Aires for 4 years and was composition teacher in the Music School at the Argentinean Catholic University and the School of Fine Arts in the University of La Plata (Argentina).
Additionally, he conducted the Contemporary Music Workshop for the San Telmo/Goethe-Institut Foundation, and was in charge of one of the composition workshops by the Antorchas Foundation (Argentina).
Gerardo Gandini was the Music Director for the Buenos Aires Philharmonic Orchestra, Music Director at the Colón Theatre and Director-Founder of the Center for Experimentation in Opera and Ballet in the same theatre. During 2003, he was resident composer at the Colón Theatre and is regularly invited to participate as jury in international composition contests.

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American Contemporary Composer: Ned Rorem (USA, b.1923)

Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923) is a Pulitzer prize-winning American composer and diarist. He is best known and praised for his song settings.

He was born in Richmond, Indiana and received his early education in Chicago at the University of Chicago Laboratory Schools, the American Conservatory and then Northwestern University. Later, Rorem moved on to the Curtis Institute in Philadelphia and finally the Juilliard School in New York City.

During the time he lived in Morocco and Paris (1949-57), his song texts came from several languages.

In 1969 he published his Paris Diary, which, with his later diaries, has brought him some degree of notoriety, as he is honest about his and others' sexuality, describing his relationships with Leonard Bernstein, Noel Coward, Samuel Barber, and Virgil Thomson, and outing at least a few people (Aldrich and Wotherspoon, eds., 2001). Rorem has written extensively about music as well. These essays are collected in anthologies such as "Setting the Tone", "Music From the Inside Out", and "Music and People". His music prose is much admired, not least for its barbed observations about prominent musicians such as Pierre Boulez. Rorem has composed in a chromatic tonal idiom throughout his career, and he is not hesitant to attack the orthodoxies of the avant-garde.

Symphonies

Symphony No. 1 (1950)

The First symphony is cast in four fairly brief movements: I. Maestoso II. Andantino III. Largo IV: Allegro. and is scored for full orchestra. Rorem has written of this work:

There are as many definitions of symphony as there are symphonies. In Haydn's day it usually meant an orchestral piece in four movements, of which the first was in so-called sonata form. But with Bach, and later with Beethoven through Stravinsky, Symphony means whatever the composer decides.

Symphony No. 2 (1956) [Boosey & Hawkes]

The Second Symphony is cast in 3 movements of unequal proportion; the 2nd & 3rd combined being less than half the length of the first; I. Broad, Moderate II. Tranquillo III. Allegro. The Second Symphony is probably the composer's least performed. Composed in 1956 it was only performed a handful of times and has remained dormant since 1959 until, as the composer puts it, "José Serebrier resurrected" it 43 years later.

Symphony No. 3 (1958) [Boosey & Hawkes]

The Third Symphony is cast in 5 movements: I. Pasacaglia II. Allegro molto vivace III. Largo IV. Andante V. Allegro molto. It is perhaps the best known of Rorem's numbered symphonies, having been premiered by Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic at Carnegie Hall, April 1959. 3 recordings have been issued over the years, though none but the most recent Naxos recording have remained in the catalogue for very long. Notable conductors of this work include: Maurice Abravanel, Leonard Bernstein, André Previn & José Serebrier. For the Naxos recording the composer noted:

Of the five movements the second was written first, the first was second, the fourth was third, the third fourth, and the last was written last. I is a Passacaglia in C, a slow overture in the grand style. II was written originally for two pianos eight years before the rest, and incorporated as the second movement of the symphony. It is a brisk and jazzy dance. III is a short, passionate page about somnambulism, full of dynamic contrast, and coming from afar. IV is a farewell to France. V is a long and fast Rondo, in itself a Concerto for Orchestra.

Orchestral

Piano Concerto No. 1 (1948), for piano & orchestra (withdrawn)

From an Unknown Past (1950), for voice & orchestra

Symphony No. 1 (1950)

Piano Concerto No. 2 (1951), for piano & orchestra

Design (1953)

Poemes pour la paix (1953/56), for voice & string orchestra

Symphony No. 2 (1956)

Sinfonia (1957), for orchestral winds with optional timpani, percussion and piano/celeste

Eagles (1958)

Pilgrims (1958), for string orchestra

Symphony No. 3 (1958)

Ideas (1961), for chamber/youth orchestra

Lions (A Dream) (1963), for jazz quartet & orchestra

Sun (1966), for high voice & orchestra

Water Music (1966), for clarinet, violin & orchestra

Piano Concerto No. 3 (1969), for piano & orchestra

Air Music (1974)

Assembly and Fall (1975), for oboe, trumpet, timpani, viola & orchestra

A Quaker Reader (1976/88), for chamber orchestra

Sunday Morning (1977)

Remembering Tommy (1979), for piano, cello & orchestra

After Long Silence (1982), for voice, oboe & strings

Violin Concerto (1984), for violin & orchestra

Organ Concerto (1985), for organ & chamber orchestra

String Symphony (1985), for string orchestra

Frolic (1986)

The Schuyler Songs (1987), for soprano & orchestra

Fantasy and Polka (1989)

Swords and Plowshares (1990), for four solo voices & orchestra

Piano Concerto No. 4 (1991), for piano (left hand) & orchestra

Concerto for English Horn (1991-92), for english horn & orchestra

Triptych (1992), for chamber orchestra

More Than A Day (1995), for soprano/countertenor & chamber orchestra

Waiting (1996)

Double Concerto (1998), for violin, cello & orchestra

Cello Concerto (2002), for cello & orchestra

Flute Concerto (2002), for flute & orchestra

Mallet Concerto (2003), for percussion & orchestra

Eleven Songs for Susan (2007), for mezzo-soprano & chamber orchestra

Songs Old and New (2008), for soprano & orchestra

Chamber

Concertino de Camera (1946), for harpsichord & small ensemble

Mountain Song (1948), for flute/oboe/violin/cello & piano

Dance Suite (1949), for two pianos

Sicilienne (1950), for two pianos

Violin Sonata (1954), for violin & piano

Eleven Studies for Eleven Players (1959-60), for large ensemble

Trio (1960), for flute, cello & piano

Lovers (1964), for harpsichord, oboe, cello & percussion

Day Music (1971), for violin & piano

Night Music (1972), for violin & piano

Solemn Prelude (1973), for eleven brass

Book of Hours (1975), for flute & harp

Romeo and Juliet (1977), for flute & guitar

Three Slow Pieces (1978), for cello & piano

Whales, Weep Not! (1978), for flute & piano

Winter Pages (1981), for clarinet, bassoon, violin, cello & piano

Picnic on the Marne (1983), for alto saxophone & piano

Dances (1984), for cello & piano

Septet Scenes from Childhood (1984-85), for oboe, horn, piano & string quartet

The End of Summer (1985), for violin, clarinet & piano

Bright Music (1987), for flute, two violins, cello & piano

Fanfare and Flourish (1988), for two trumpets, two trombones & organ

Diversions (1990), for brass quintet

Spring Music (1990), for piano trio

String Quartet No. 3 (1991)

Songs of Sadness (1994), for voice, guitar, cello & clarinet

String Quartet No. 4 (1994)

Six Variations (1995), for two pianos - four hands

Autumn Music (1996-97), for violin & piano

An Oboe Book (1999), for oboe & piano

Cries and Whispers (2000), for trumpet & piano

Nine Episodes for Four Players (2001), for clarinet, violin, cello & piano

United States - Seven Viewpoints (2001), for string quartet

Pas de Trois (2002), for oboe, violin & piano

The Unquestioned Answer (2002), for flute, two violins, cello & piano

Four Colours (2003), for clarinet & piano

Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow (2004), for piano quartet

Four Prayers (2006), for flute & piano

Nocturne (2007), for double bass & piano

A Little Fantasy (2008), for cello & piano

Vocal

Two Poems of Edith Sitwell (1948), for medium-high voice & piano

Requiem (1948), for voice & piano

From an Unknown Past (1950), for voice & piano/orchestra

Cycle of Holy Songs (1951), for voice & piano

Flight for Heaven (1952), song-cycle for voice & piano

Four Dialogues (1953-54), for soprano, tenor & two pianos

Three Poems for Demetrios Capetanakis (1954), for voice & piano

Poems pour la paix (1953/56), for medium voice & strings

Five Poems of Walt Whitman (1957), for voice & piano

Two Poems of Theodore Roethke (1959) for voice & piano

King Midas (1961), cantata for voice(s) & piano

Four Poems of Tennyson (1963), for voice & piano

Poems of Love and the Rain (1963), song-cycle for mezzo-soprano & piano

Sun (1966), for high voice & orchestra

Some Trees (1968), for soprano, mezzo-soprano, bass-baritone & piano

War Scenes (1969), for medium-low voice & piano

Gloria (1970), for two solo voices & piano

Ariel (1971), for soprano, clarinet & piano

Last Poems of Wallace Stevens (1971-72), for voice, cello & piano

Serenade on Five English Poems (1975), for mezzo-soprano, violin, viola & piano

Women's Voices (1975-76), for soprano & piano

Santa Fe Songs (1980), for baritone, string trio & piano

After Long Silence (1982), for soprano, oboe & strings

Three Calamus Poems (1982), for baritone & piano

The Schuyler Songs (1987), for soprano & orchestra

The Auden Poems (1989), for tenor & piano trio

Swords and Plowshares (1990), for solo voices & orchestra

My Sad Captains (1995), for soprano, alto, tenor, bass & piano

Evidence of Things Not Seen (1997), thirty-six songs for soprano, alto, tenor, baritone & piano

Another Sleep (2000), song-cycle for medium voice & piano

Two Sermons (2001), for voice, clarinet, violin, double bass & piano

Aftermath (2001-02), song-cycle for baritone, violin, cello & piano

Sound the Flute (2004), for high voice, recorder & piano

Eleven Songs for Susan (2007), for mezzo-soprano & chamber orchestra

Three Poems of Edna St. Vincent Millay (2007), for voice & piano

Songs Old and New (2008), for soprano & orchestra

Four Sonnets of Shakespeare (2008), for tenor & piano

Selected Songs

[All with piano accompaniment, except where stated otherwise.]

Alleluia (1946)

Spring and Fall (1946)

Spring (1947)

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1947)

The Lordly Hudson (1947)

Echo's Song (1948)

Little Elegy (1949)

Rain in Spring (1949)

Silver Swan (1949)

The Sleeping Palace (1949)

What If Some Little Pain (1949)

Julia's Clothes (1950)

Lullaby of the Woman of the Mountain (1950)

To the Willow Tree (1950)

Love in a Life (1951)

O Do Not Love Too Long (1951)

The Call (1951)

The Nightingale (1951)

To a Young Girl (1951)

A Christmas Carol (1952)

Clouds (1953)

Cradle Song (1953)

For Susan (1953)

In a Gondola (1953)

Love (1953)

Pippa's Song (1953)

Sally's Smile (1953)

Song for a Girl (1953)

The Tulip Tree (1953)

The Midnight Sun (1953)

Early in the Morning (1954)

Youth, Day, Old Age and Night (1954)

I Am Rose (1955)

I Will Always Love You (1955)

See How They Love Me (1956)

What Sparks and Wiry Cries (1956)

Conversation (1957)

Gliding O'er All (1957)

Gods (1957)

Look Down, Fair Moon (1957)

O You to Whom I Often and Silently Come (1957)

Reconciliation (1957)

Sometimes With One I Love (1957)

Such Beauty as Hurts to Behold (1957)

To You (1957)

Visits to St. Elizabeth's (1957)

I Strolled Across an Open Field (1959)

Memory (1959)

My Papa's Waltz (1959)

Night Crow (1959)

Orchids (1959)

Root Cellar (1959)

Snake (1959)

The Waking (1959)

Do I love you more than a day? (1962)

Ask Me No More (1963)

Far-Far-Away (1963)

For Poulenc (1963)

Now Sleeps the Crimson Petal (1963)

The Sleeping Palace (1963)

That Shadow, My Likeness (1963)

To You (1970)

Trickle Drops (1970)

The Serpent (1972)

We Never Said Farewell (1975-76)

A Journey (1976)

Ferry me across the water (1978)

From When Cometh Song? (1978)

The Dance (1978)

Nantucket (1978-79)

Go, Lovely Rose (1979)

The Dancer (1979)

Up-Hill (1979)

Back to Life (1980) [accomp. double bass]

Sonnet (1980) [accomp. piano quartet]

The Sowers (1980) [accomp. piano quartet]

The Wintry Mind (1980)

Let's Take a Walk (1981)

Anna la Bonne (1989)

Are You the New Person? (1989)

Full of Life Now (1989)

I Will Always Love You (1990)

A Dream of Nightingales (1992)

Their Lonely Betters (1992)

Somewhere... (1994)

Three Women (1994)

Remembrance of Things Past (1998)

Chromatic Fantasy (2001)

He Will Not Hear (2001)

I Never Knew (2001)

The End (2003)

While Sodom Was Occupied (2004)

The Stars Have Not Dealt (2007)

Choral

The Seventieth Psalm (1943), for S.A.T.B. choir & wind ensemble

A Sermon on Miracles (1947), for soprano solo, unison choir & strings

Four Madrigals (1947), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Three Incantations from a Marionette Tale (1948), for unison choir & piano

From an Unknown Past (1950), for S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

I Feel Death... (1953), for three-part a cappella male choir

The Poets' Requiem (1954-55), soprano solo, S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

All Glorious God (1955), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Sing, My Soul, His Wondrous Love (1955), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Miracles of Christmas (1959), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Prayers and Responses (1960), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Virelai (1961), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Two Psalms and a Proverb (1962), for S.A.T.B. choir & string quartet

Lift up your Heads (The Ascension) (1963), for S.A.T.B. choir, eight wind, nine brass & timpani

Laudemus Tempus Actum (1964), for S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

Letters from Paris (1966), for S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling (1966), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Proper for the Votive Mass of the Holy Spirit (1966), for unison choir & organ

Truth in the Night Season (1966), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

He Shall Rule from Sea to Sea (1967), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Praises for the Nativity (1970), for soprano, alto, tenor & bass soli, S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Canticle of the Lamb (1971), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Canticles: Sets 1 & 2 (1971-72), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Four Hymns (1973), for S.A.T.B. choir & keyboard

In Time of Pestilence (1973), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Little Prayers (1973), for soprano & baritone soli, S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

Missa Brevis (1973), for soprano, alto, tenor & bass soli, & S.A.T.B. choir

Prayer to Jesus (1973), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Three Motets (1973), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Three Prayers (1973), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Surge Illuminare (1977), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Three Choruses for Christmas (1978), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Give All to Love (1981), for two-part choir & piano

Little Lamb, Who Made Thee? (1982), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Praise the Lord, O My Soul (1982), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

An American Oratorio (1983), for tenor solo, S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

Mercy and Truth Are Met (1983), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Whitman Cantata (1983), for S.A.T.B. choir, brass ensemble & timpani

Pilgrim Strangers (1984), for six a cappella male voices

Before the Morning Star (1986), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Homer (1986), for S.A.T.B. choir & ensemble

Seven Motets for the Church Year (1986), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Three Poems of Baudelaire (1986), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Te Deum (1986-87), for S.A.T.B. choir, two trumpets, two trombones & organ

Five Armenian Love Songs (1987), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

The Death of Moses (1987), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

What is Pink? (1987), for treble choir & piano

Goodbye My Fancy (1988), for alto & baritone soli, S.A.T.B. choir & orchestra

Lead Kindly Light (1988), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Breathe On Me (1989), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Love Alone (1989), for male-voice choir & piano duet

Christ is made the sure foundation (1992), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Festival Alleluia (1992), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

O God, My Heart is Ready (1992), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Spirit Divine (1992), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Present Laughter (1993), for S.A.T.B. choir, brass quintet & piano

How Lovely is your Dwelling Place (1994), for S.A.T.B. choir & piano/organ

Exaltabo Te, Domine (1995), for S.A.T.B. choir & keyboard

Four Introits (1999), for S.A.T.B. choir & keyboard

We Are the Music Makers (2003), for S.A.T.B. choir & piano

A Song of Hosea (2005), for S.A.T.B. choir & organ

Four Sonnets (2005), for S.A.T.B. choir & piano

Ode to Man (2005), for a cappella S.A.T.B. choir

Afternoon on a Hill (2006), for two-part children's choir & piano

Two Shakespearean Poems (2008), for S.A.T.B. choir & piano

Solo Instrumental

Fantasy and Toccata (1946), for organ

Sonata No. 1 (1948), for piano

A Quiet Afternoon (1948), for piano

Barcarolles (1949), for piano

Pastorale (1949), for organ

Sonata No. 2 (1949), for piano

Spiders (1968), for harpsichord

Eight Etudes (1975), for piano

A Quaker Reader (1976), for organ

Sky Music (1976), for harp

After Reading Shakespeare (1980), for cello

Suite (1980), for guitar

Views from the Oldest House (1981), for organ

Song and Dance (1986), for piano

For Shirley (1989), for piano duet

Organbook I. (1989), for organ

Organbook II. (1989), for organ

Organbook III. (1989), for organ

Six Pieces (1997), for organ

99 Notes for the Millenium (1999), for piano

For Ben (1999), for piano

Recalling (2003), for piano

For Barbara (2006), for piano

For Don (2006), for piano

For Marian (2006), for piano

For Mary (2006), for piano

For Rosemary (2006), for piano

75 Notes for Jerry (2007), for piano

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Argentinian Composer : Juan Jose Castro (1895-1968)

Juan José Castro (1895-1968) has earned widespread recognition as one of the most important Argentine composers of the 20th century. Since his twenties he championed the modern music cause both as a conductor, performing South American premieres of such works as Le Sacre du Printemps, and as a composer, experimenting with dissonant techniques and neoclassicism. Castro's musical language is synthesis of three different musical trends: the Spanish, with modal Moorish colors and vital rhythms; the French, with both "Franckian" textures and the biting dissonances of Les Six; and the Argentine, with tango rhythms and cadences.

Juan Jose Castro was born to a family of musicians on March 7th. 1895, in Avellaneda, province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. In this country, he studied with Manuel POSADAS, Constantino GAITO and Eduardo FORNARINI From the last two teachers, Castro inherited Gaito's fondness of the folk element and Fornarini's tendency to controlled and cerebral composition processes.
During the French belle epoque, in the 1920s, he completed his studies in Paris under the teachings of the composer Vicent D'INDY and the pianist Edouard RISLER. Back in Buenos Aires in 1925, Castro devoted himself mainly to orchestral conducting, making his debut in 1928 with the "Renacimiento" Chamber Orchestra. A year later, he was invited to conduct the Argentinean premiere of "El amor brujo" ("Love, the sorcerer") -piece by the eminent Spanish composer Manuel de Falla- in the Colon Theatre in Buenos Aires. With this performance, Castro initiated two fruitful and longlasting associations: first, with the Colon Theatre, and second, with Manuel de Falla. Juan Jose Castro's active and ever growing career as a conductor can be followed decade by decade, between the 30s and the 50s. During the 1930s, he was intensely busy with orchestras in Argentina. His programs frequently included music by 20th century composers, such as the French Impressionists, members of "Les Six", and contemporary Spanish and Argentine composers.
The decade of the 1940s marked the beginning of Castro's international career. Some important tours throughout the Americas took him to the USA -invited by Toscanini to conduct the NBC Symphony Orchestra,- Mexico, Peru and Chile. Later, between 1947 and 1949, he was the music director of the Philarmonic Orchestra of Cuba, and between 1949 and 1952, of the SODRE Symphony Orchestra in Montevideo, Uruguay.
During the 50's Castro's international reputation continued to extend to the rest of the world. In 1950, a succesful debut with the Belgrad Symphony Orchestra, in Yugoslavia, launched a European tour that included England, Switzerland, France, Spain, Norway and Finland. After Europe, he travelled to Australia to conduct the Melbourne Victorian Symphony Orchestra and other orchestras of that country and New Zealand, between 1952 and 1953.
Finally, after an absence of more than seven years, Castro returned to the Argentine musical scene in 1955. Back in his native country, he directed the National Symphony Orchestra until 1960. During these years, the broad experience acquired in his tours and his exceptional talent as a conductor, allowed Castro to transform this orchestra into the foremost musical institution in the country.
The last stages of Castro's career took place at the Music Festival of California, USA, and in San Juan of Puerto Rico, where he bacame the Dean of the National Conservatory after a formal request made by its founder the violoncellist Pablo Casals.

The neo-classic Argentine composer.
Castro and Stravinsky

Juan Jose Castro appeal as a composer is the result of his rich and eclectic style, and of his balanced aesthetic sense. His works include numerous symphonic pieces, fiIm music, chamber music, music for piano solo, bandoneon solo, voice and piano, choir, operas and arrangements of music by other composers such as Bach, Weber, and Julian Aguirre.
Castro's musical language is a very personal and original synthesis of three different musical currents: the Spanish, with its modal scales, moorish flavor and vital rhythm; the French, with Franck-like harmonies and textures, and Impressionist atmospheres, and finally the Argentinean, with its folk flavor from the countryside, and its urban tanto from the "arrabal" (outskirts) of Buenos Aires. Among Castro's most important pieces, mention is due to his Biblic Symphony (1932), the ballet "Mekhano" (1934), the Sinfonia Argentina (1934), the Piano Concerto (1941), the String Quartet (1944), "El Llanto de las Sierras" (The weeping of the hills, 1947), "Corales Criollos no. 3" (Creole chorales no. 3, 1953), and his operas "La Zapatera Prodigiosa" (The woundrous shoemaker, 1943), "Proserpina y el Extranjero " (Proserpine and the Foreigner, 1951) and "Bodas de Sangre" (Blood weedings, 1952).
As a composer, Juan Jose Castro was always committed to the Argentine avant-garde movement. ln 1929 he joined the "Grupo Renovacion" -that grouped contemporary Argentine composers- and, in 1948, the Argentine Composers Association. His pieces were awarded prizes in many ocassion. The opera "Proserpine and the Foreigner" -premiered at the "Alla Scala" Theatre in Milan- received the "VERDl" award after having been chosen among 138 pieces; "Corales Criollos no. 2" won a prize in Caracas at the Latin American Music Festival in 1953; and, lastly, the National Fund for the Arts of Argentina awarded him the Honorary Grand Prize in 1965 for his musical production.

Parallel to his career as a composer and conductor; Castro held many important administrative appointments: he was the General Director of the Colon Theatre from 1933, professor in the National Conservatory of Music in Buenos Aires from 1939 to 1943, member of the Fine Arts National Council in Argentina from 1945 and member director of the National Endowment for the Arts.

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Contemporary American Composer Joan Tower (b.1938)

Hailed as "one of the most successful woman composers of all time" in The New Yorker magazine, Joan Tower was the first woman to receive the Grawemeyer Award in Composition in 1990. She was inducted in 1998 into the prestigious American Academy of Arts and Letters, and into the Academy of Arts and Sciences at Harvard University in the fall of 2004. She was the first composer chosen for the ambitious new Ford Made in America commissioning program, a collaboration of the League of American Orchestras (at that time, the American Symphony Orchestra League) and Meet the Composer. In October 2005, the Glens Falls Symphony Orchestra presented the world premiere of Tower's 15-minute orchestral piece Made in America. The work went on to performances in every state in the Union during the 2005-07 seasons. The Nashville Symphony and conductor Leonard Slatkin recorded Made in America, Tambor, and Concerto for Orchestra for the Naxos label. The top-selling recording won three 2008 Grammy awards: Best Classical Contemporary Composition, Best Classical Album, and Best Orchestral Performance.
Tower has added conductor to her list of accomplishments, with engagements at the American Symphony, the Hudson Valley Philharmonic, the Scotia Festival Orchestra, the Anchorage Symphony, Kalisto Chamber Orchestra and another eight of the Made in America orchestras, among others.Since 1972, Tower has taught at Bard College, where she is Asher Edelman Professor of Music. She recently concluded her ten-year tenure as composer-in-residence with the Orchestra of St. Luke's, a title she has held at the Deer Valley Music Festival in Utah since 1998 as well as at the Yale/Norfolk Chamber Music Festival for eight years. Other accolades include the 1998 Delaware Symphony's Alfred I. DuPont Award for Distinguished American Composer, the 2002 Annual Composer's Award from the Lancaster (PA) Symphony, and an Honorary Degree from the New England Conservatory (2006). "Tower has truly earned a place among the most original and forceful voices in modern American music" (The Detroit News). Among her recent premieres: Angels (2008), her fourth string quartet, commissioned by Music for Angel Fire and premiered by the Miami String Quartet; Dumbarton Quintet (2008), a piano quintet commissioned by the Dumbarton Oaks Estate (their third commission after Stravinsky and Copland) and premiered by Tower and the Enso String Quartet; <>Chamber Dance (2006), commissioned, premiered, and toured by Orpheus; and Copperwave (2006), written for the American Brass Quintet and commissioned by the Juilliard School of Music. As part of her appointment as Season Composer for 2007-08 by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, A Gift (2007), for winds and piano, was commissioned by Chamber Music Northwest and premiered by the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center players Tara O'Connor, David Shifrin, William Purvis, Milan Turkovich, and Anne Marie McDermott in February 2008. Other CMS premieres included Trio Cavany (2007), performed by Cho-Liang Lin, Gary Hoffman, and André Michel Schub, and Simply Purple (2008) for viola, performed by Paul Neubauer.Her compositions cross many genres: Can I (2007) for youth chorus and two percussionists; Copperwave (2006), written for the American Brass Quintet and commissioned by the Juilliard School of Music; DNA (2003), a percussion quintet commissioned for Frank Epstein and the New England Conservatory Percussion Ensemble, Fascinating Ribbons (2001), her foray into the world of band music, premiered at the annual conference of College Band Directors; Vast Antique Cubes/Throbbing Still (2000), a solo piano piece for John Browning; Big Sky (2000), a piano trio premiered by David Finckel, Wu Han, and Chee-Yun; Tambor (1998), for the Pittsburgh Symphony under the baton of Mariss Jansons; and Wild Purple (1998) for violist Paul Neubauer. Tower's 1990 Grawemeyer Award-winning Silver Ladders was written during her 1985-88 St. Louis Symphony residency, and was subsequently choreographed in 1998 by Helgi Tomasson and the San Francisco Ballet. Her 1993 ballet Stepping Stones was commissioned by choreographer Kathryn Posin for the Milwaukee Ballet. Joan Tower's bold and energetic music, with its striking imagery and novel structural forms, has won large, enthusiastic audiences. From 1969 to 1984, she was pianist and founding member of the Naumburg Award-winning Da Capo Chamber Players, which commissioned and premiered many of her most popular works. Her first orchestral work, Sequoia, quickly entered the repertory, with performances by orchestras including St. Louis, New York, San Francisco, Minnesota, Tokyo NHK, Toronto, the National Symphony and London Philharmonia. A choreographed version by The Royal Winnipeg Ballet toured throughout Canada, Europe, and Russia. Tower's tremendously popular five Fanfares for the Uncommon Woman have been played by over 500 different ensembles. In addition to two Naxos recordings, Tower's popular Petroushskates opens the new first recording by the innovative group, eighth blackbird, on the Cedille label. Fanfares Nos. 1-5, Duets, and Concerto for Orchestra with the Colorado Symphony (Marin Alsop) may be heard on Koch; and the disc "Four Concertos" — with Elmar Oliveira, Ursula Oppens, David Shifrin, Carol Wincenc and the Louisville Orchestra — is available on d'Note Records. Turning Points (1995), a clarinet quintet for David Shifrin and the Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, is on Delos. New World Records features he chamber music, including her first string quartet Night Fields. First Edition celebrates her legacy with the St. Louis and Louisville Symphonies with an all-Tower orchestral disc which includes Sequoia, Silver Ladders, Music for Cello and Orchestra, and Island Prelude for oboe and strings featuring soloists Lynn Harrell and Peter Bowman. Joan Tower has been the subject of television documentaries on PBS's WGBH television station in Boston, on the CBS network program, Sunday Morning, and MJW Productions in England. She is published exclusively by Associated Music Publishers.Check for Some of Joan's Music at comments

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Argentinian Composer-Luis Gianneo (1895-1968)

Luis Gianneo
Luis Gianneo was one of the leading composers of his generation. Profoundly Argentinian, he was one of the first and most succesful creators to strive for a national music with contemporary significance. Most of his mature musical output shows traces of folk elements, woven into a neo-classical musical language, sometimes angular, other times lyrical, but always full of life and momentum.. As a composer, he became one of the most important predescesors of Alberto Ginastera, who in many occasions expressed his admiration for Gianneo, and whose music shows interesting parallelisms with the older composer.
Gianneo was a tireless musician and educator. He was extremely active teaching, conducting and performing in the northern province of Tucuman for more than twenty years. Later, upon his return to Buenos Aires he formed and conducted several youth orchestras. He was one of the few composers of his generation who chose to remain in his home country to develop a musical tradition from within instead of seeking recognition abroad.
Complete biography
Luis Gianneo was born in Buenos Aires on 9th January 1897 into a musical family of Italian immigrants. Unsurprisingly he began his musical studies at an early age under the leading teachers of the time. He was a piano pupil of Luigi Romaniello and Ernesto Drangosh and studied composition with Constantino Gaito and Eduardo Fornarini. When Fornarini moved abroad, Gianneo relied on his own resources for further study.
Josefina Ghidoni. Gianneo's first wife.
During his earlier years Gianneo formed a violin and piano duo with his brother Miguel and also accompanied distinguished visiting violinists, while there were performances of his own first chamber and piano compositions. In 1921 he married the pianist and singer Josefina Ghidoni, and in 1923 moved with his family to the northern city of San Miguel de Tucumán on the invitation of his brother-in-law, a well-known cellist, working first as a teacher at the Tucumán Instituto Musical, of which he later became director. For twenty years he continued in Tucumán as a teacher, pianist and orchestral conductor, active with his wife in stimulating local musical life. Here he introduced practically all his compositions and performed a great deal of contemporary music by composers such as Stravinsky, Debussy and Respighi. He founded and directed the Philharmonic Association, presided from 1935 over the prestigious Sociedad Sarmento, and collaborated with the Review of the institution, contributing, in the first issue, in April 1936, a long article on his much admired Stravinsky, whose neo-classical principles he followed and whose influence is clearly reflected in his orchestral Obertura para una Comedia Infantil (Overture to a Children’s Play), first performed in 1937 under his direction in a concert of the Tucumán Asociación Sinfónica.
In 1932 Gianneo joined the Grupo Renovación, founded in 1929 by the brothers Juan José and José Maria Castro, Jacobo Ficher and Juan Carlos Paz. Gianneo, however, was never able to identify completely with some of the principles of the group, especially with those of Juan Carlos Paz, whose radical ideas and fixed absolutist attitudes he did not share. Their differences came to a head in 1952, when Paz published an article in the Buenos Aires Musical in which he denied the technical and creative ability of those who did not share his musical ideas, a proposition openly opposed by Gianneo.
The fame of Gianneo had already spread further afield, with acclaim in Buenos Aires for works such as El Tarco en Flor, Pampeanas and Turay-Turay, and important performances of his works in major cities of the interior. In addition to participation in a large number of concerts as pianist, conductor or composer, he also served as organist at the Church of St Francis. In these fruitful years in Tucumán he was greatly helped by his wife and his daughters, Celia, a fine pianist, and Brunilda, a talented violinist.
In 1938 Gianneo travelled to Europe with his family with an award from the National Cultural Commission, absorbing there the latest musical trends and visiting Italy, France, Germany, Belgium and Switzerland. In Florence he attended the International Music Congress and in Turin conducted the Orchestra of the Royal Conservatory in his symphonic poem Turay-Turay as part of a concert devoted to the work of Argentinian composers. In Paris he wrote his Cinco pequeñas piezas (Five Little Pieces) and the Sonatina for piano, the First Symphony and the Concertino-Serenata. At the beginning of 1939, some months before the outbreak of war, the family returned to Buenos Aires, where they finally established themselves in 1943.
In 1945 Gianneo founded the Argentinian Youth Orchestra for Radio El Mundo, and then, in 1954, the Youth Symphony Orchestra of Radio Nacional. He served as director of the National Conservatory and was a member of the Cultural Commission and the Academy of Fine Arts. Awards for his compositions included the Prize of the Free Library of Philadelphia for Latin-American Composers for his Concierto Aymara for violin and orchestra, first performed at the Teatro Colón in 1944, and the Municipal Prize of the City of Buenos Aires for his Transfiguración for baritone and orchestra. Commissioned works included the Variaciones sobre un tema de tango (Variations on a Tango Theme) for the Friends of Music Association, Piano Sonata No. 3 for the Association of Chamber Concerts, the symphony Antífona for Radio Nacional, the cantata Angor Dei for the Tucumán Musical September and the Obertura del Sesquicentenario, his last work, for the Organization of American States.
The first ten years back in Buenos Aires brought Gianneo increasing fame, with frequent performances of his music. His work as a teacher was as intensive as it had been in Tucumán, with pupils that included Rodolfo Arizaga and Virtú Maragno, and later the famous conductor Pedro Ignacio Calderón and Ariel Ramirez, the very distinguished pianist and composer of traditional Argentinian music. In 1949 Alberto Ginastera invited him to serve as Professor of Harmony, Instrumentation and Composition at the recently created Conservatory of Music and Drama of La Plata.
From 1955, after the coup d’état that ousted General Perón, Gianneo was appointed inspector of the National Conservatory. In the same year his wife died suddenly, after a short illness. Soon afterwards his two daughters moved to Europe for further study and he spent a number of years alone before marrying Inés Rosa Sayans in 1960. With her he travelled to Europe, sent by the Ministry of Education to study new methods of musical education.
Gianneo’s son Luis Alejandro was born in Rome in 1961. He dedicated his 1962 cantata Angor Dei to his wife, and to his son the 1965 Poema de la Saeta. In the latter year he was elected President of the Argentinian Society for Music Education. In 1967 he undertook his third journey to Europe, making contact there with state broadcasting stations, academies and theatres, to promote the performance of Argentinian music. He died eight months after his return to Buenos Aires, on 15th August 1968, while revising the score of Transfiguración for a coming performance.

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Argentinian Composer-Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983)

The Argentinian composer Alberto Ginastera (1916-1983) is widely regarded as one of the most important and original South American composer of the 20th century. His attractive output for piano skillfully combines folk Argentine rhythms and colors with modern composing techniques. Exhilarating rhythmic energy, captivating lyricism and hallucinatory atmosphere are some of the characteristics of his musical style. Fundacion Ostinato has produced recordings of his complete works for piano solo, and the world-premiere of his TWO PIANO CONCERTI in one CD.
Complete biography
Alberto Ginastera, Argentine composer, died on June 25, 1983. He had been born in Buenos Aires on April 11, 1916, the son of Catalonian and Italian immigrants devoted to agriculture, trade, and crafts.
He began his music studies at a very early age. When he was 12 he entered the Williams Conservatory. In 1934 he got his first award from "El Unisono" Association. Many important awards followed throughout his life, such as "Argentine School Song" Award, four national prizes, three municipal prizes , Bicentennial Cinzano Award, National Fund for the Arts Annual Award, etc.
In 1942 Ginastera received a grant from the Guggenheim Foundation to visit the United States, but he postponed his trip until 1945. This journey was to highly influence his future works On his return to Buenos Aires he and other Argentine composers founded the Composers' League. He also founded the La Plata Music and Performing Arts Conservatory and the Latin American Center for Advanced Music Studies at the Di Tella Institute, in Buenos Aires.
As to his numerous academic activities, he was a Member of the Conseil Intemational de la Musique (UNESCO), Member of the National Academy of Fine Arts in Argentina, Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Honorary Member of the School of Music Sciences and Arts (Chile Nation al University), Member of the Chilean Composers Association, and Honorary Member of the Brazilian Music Academy.
He was the Dean and Honorary Professor at the School of Music Sciences and Arts (Argentine Catholic University), and Professor at the La Plata University. In 1968 Yale University awarded him an honorary doctorate.
Ginastera is the foremost representative of musical nationalism. His oeuvre covers all music genres. He composed three operas, five ballets, orchestra works, one harp concerto, two piano concertos, two cello concertos, one violin concerto, two choir works, cantatas, works for piano, voice, organ, flute, guitar, and chamber music. He also composed music for the theater and for eleven movies. His total repertoire contains fifty five works, but being perfectionist and meticulous as he was, many of them were withdrawn from his catalogue.
As to Ginastera's style, his oeuvre can be divided into three periods that he called Objective Nationalism, Subjective Nationalism, and Neo-Expressionism.
His early works belong to the first period. Ginastera uses Argentine folk and popular elements and introduces them in a straight forward manner. He is also influenced by Stravinsky and, in a lesser degree, by Bartok and Falla. Two of his most famous works belong to this period, Argentine Dances op. 2 for piano, and Estancia (Ballet).
From 1948 on, the time of his stay in the US, he starts to use more advanced composing techniques. He naturally turns to Subjective Nationalism, with no revolutionary positions. He does away with popular traditional elements, although he continues to use them mainly for symbolic purposes. He never gives up Argentine traditions. He uses rhythmic contrasts and has a deep, tense feeling. Melody is still important, as well and contrasts between tension and relaxation. The most important works belonging to this period are Pampeana No. 3 for orchestra and his Piano Sonata No. 1, one of the staples in the repertoire of today's pianists.
His Neo-Expressionist period starts approximately in 1958. In Ginastera's own words, "There are no more folk melodic or rhythmic cells, nor is there any symbolism. There are, however, constant Argentine elements, such as strong, obsessive rhythms, meditative adagios suggesting the quietness of the Pampas; magic, mysterious sounds reminding the cryptic nature of the country. Several important works belong to this period, such as his much criticized opera Bomarzo, his Popul Vuh for orchestra, and his Concerto No. 2 for Cello and orchestra.

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Britsh Composer- Cyril Scott (187-1970)

Cyril Meir Scott (27 September 1879 – 31 December 1970) was an English composer, writer, and poet.
BiographyScott was born in Oxton (Merseyside) in northern England, United Kingdom, to Henry Scott, a shipper and scholar of Greek and Hebrew, and Mary Scott (née Griffiths), an amateur pianist. He showed a talent for music from an early age and was sent to the Hoch Conservatory in Frankfurt, Germany to study piano in 1892 at age 12. He belonged to the Frankfurt Group, a circle of composers who studied at the Hoch Conservatory in the late 1890s. His first symphony was performed nine years later.
In 1902 he met the pianist Evelyn Suart, with whom he had a long artistic association. She championed his music, premiering many of his works, and introducing him to his publisher, Elkin, with whom he remained for the rest of his life. Evelyn Suart was also a Christian Scientist, and it was through her that Scott became interested in metaphysics.[1][2] Scott dedicated his Scherzo, Op. 25 to Evelyn Suart. (Her daughter Diana Gould was a noted ballerina and the second wife of Yehudi Menuhin.)
In 1909 he recorded 6 of his own works for Welte-Mignon.
Scott married Rose L. Allatini in May 1921. They had two children: Vivien Mary Scott (born 1923) and Desmond Cyril Scott (born 1926). He separated from Rose following World War II. In 1943, he met Marjorie Hartston, who remained his companion until his death.
He composed up until the last three weeks of his life, dying at the age of 91. By the time of his death Scott was little regarded. Now his work is coming strongly back into favour. His Second Symphony was premiered by Sir Henry J. Wood at a 1903 Prom Concert and was extremely well received, although it inexplicably did not receive subsequent performances.
[edit] MusicScott was romanticist with some impressionist qualities. His harmonic treatments and piano works depict the exotic.
As a composer, Scott wrote around four hundred works, including four symphonies, three operas, two piano concertos, four oratorios, four concertos (for violin, cello, oboe and harpsichord) and several overtures (Nativity Hymn (1913), Mystic Ode (1932), Ode to Great Men (1936), and Hymn of Unity (1947), as well as tone poems, chamber music and songs. Between 1903 and 1914 Scott wrote more works for the piano than any other composer with the exception of Scriabin. He was called the "Father of modern British music" by Eugene Goossens, and was also admired by Debussy, Percy Grainger, Sorabji, Richard Strauss and Stravinsky. He was sometimes referred to as "the English Debussy".
Symphonies1st Symphony - performed in Darmstadt in 1900 2nd Symphony - performed in London in 1903 3rd Symphony, The Muses - performed in Manchester in 2003 4th Symphony - performed in Manchester in 2005
RecordingsThe record label Chandos is planning to record all Scott's major orchestral compositions. So far, they have released three CD's: The first volume containing the tone poem Neptune (1935), Symphony No. 3 The Muses (1939) and the second piano concerto (1958). The second volume containing the tone poem "Early One Morning" (1931) , Symphony No. 4 (1952) and the first piano concerto (1914). The third volume containing the violin concerto, "Festival Overture", "Aubade" and "Three Symphonic Dances".
Some of Scott's works for piano were recorded for the ABC Classics Eloquence label by the Australian pianist Dennis Hennig in 1991. He intended to record the complete piano works, but died before that project was finished.
Other worksIn 2001, a piece thought for many decades to be lost, the Sonatina for guitar (1927), was discovered by Angelo Gilardino in the archives of Andrés Segovia, for whom the piece was originally written. It has since been recorded by the German guitarist Tilman Hoppstock, among others. His Pastoral and Reel for cello and piano was recorded by Julian Lloyd Webber and John Lenehan for Philips Classics in 1994. His Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra (1937) has recently been reconstructed by Jory Vinikour and will be given its first hearing since its premiere by the Orion Chamber Orchestra, Toby Purser conducting, at St. John's, Smith Square with Jory Vinikour as soloist in September 2008.
LiteratureIn addition to his work as a composer and performer, Scott wrote poetry and prose. He was highly interested in the occult and in health foods. He described his beliefs as a blend of science, philosophy, and religion.

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Contemporary American Composer-William Bolcom (b.1938)

William Elden Bolcom (born May 26, 1938) is an American composer and pianist. He has received the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Arts, two Grammy Awards, and the Detroit Music Award. Bolcom taught composition at the University of Michigan from 1973-2008. He is married to mezzo-soprano Joan Morris.BiographyBolcom was born in Seattle, Washington. At the age of 11, he entered the University of Washington to study composition privately with George Frederick McKay and John Verrall and piano with Madame Berthe Poncy Jacobson. He later studied with Darius Milhaud at Mills College while working on his Master of Arts degree, with Leland Smith at Stanford University while working on his D.M.A., and with Olivier Messiaen at the Paris Conservatoire, where he received the 2éme Prix de Composition.
Bolcom won the Pulitzer Prize for music in 1988 for 12 New Etudes for Piano. In the fall of 1994, he was named the Ross Lee Finney Distinguished University Professor of Composition at the University of Michigan, a position which he still holds. In 2006, he was awarded the National Medal of Arts.
His notable students include John Anthony Lennon, Frank Ticheli, Gabriela Lena Frank, and John Berners.
Performance careerAs a pianist, Bolcom has performed and recorded frequently in collaboration with Joan Morris. Bolcom and Morris have recorded twenty albums together, beginning with After the Ball, a collection of popular songs from around the turn of the 20th century. Their primary specialties in both concerts and recordings are showtunes and popular songs from the early 20th century, and cabaret songs (often from failed musicals).
WorksBolcom's setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, a three-hour work for soloists, choruses, and orchestra culminated 25 years of work on the piece. Its premiere at the Stuttgart Opera in 1984 was followed by performances in Ann Arbor, Chicago's Grant Park, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, St. Louis, Carnegie Hall, and London's Royal Festival Hall, the latter performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Leonard Slatkin. In 2006, a recording of it won 3 Grammy Awards for Best Choral Performance, Best Classical Contemporary Composition, and Best Classical Album on Naxos Records.
His opera, A View from the Bridge, with libretto by Arthur Miller and Arnold Weinstein, was premiered October 9, 1999, at the Lyric Opera of Chicago. He has also composed works for solo wind instruments such as Concert Suite for alto saxophone and band, composed for University of Michigan professor Donald Sinta in 1998.
Bolcom's other works include eight symphonies, a number of piano rags (some written in collaboration with William Albright), and four volumes of cabaret songs. He composed his concerto "Gaea for Two Pianos Left Hand, and Orchestra" for Gary Graffman and his close friend Leon Fleisher, both of whom have suffered from debilitating problems with their right hands. It received its first performance in Baltimore in April 1996. The concerto is constructed so that it can be performed in one of three ways, with either piano part alone with reduced orchestra, or with both piano parts and the two reduced orchestras combined into a full orchestra. This challenging structure mimics that of a similar three-in-one work by his teacher Milhaud. William Bolcom was also comissioned to write Receurdos for Two Pianos by The Dranoff International Two Piano Foundation.

List of notable works

1957: First Symphony

1970: Ghost Rags

1977: New Etudes for Piano

1977-85: Cabaret Songs (Vol. 1 and 2)

1979: Third Symphony (for Chamber Orchestra)

1979-1984: Gospel Preludes[1] (Books 1-4)

1984: Songs of Innocence and of Experience (William Blake)

1984: Lilith for Alto Saxophone and Piano

1984: Violin Concerto

1986: Fantasia Concertante, for viola, cello and orchestra 1

989: Fifth Symphony

1990-92 McTeague

1992-93 Lyric Concerto for Flute and Orchestra

1993-96: Cabaret Songs (Vol. 3 and 4) 1

996-97: Sixth Symphony

1997-98: A View from the Bridge

1998: Concert Suite (for alto saxophone and band)

2004: A Wedding

2008: Eighth Symphony

Illuminating Bolcom Festival

VocalEssence celebrated the music of William Bolcom with a two-week festival in Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota in April 2007. Nine different performances and a number of master classes were part of the festival. The spotlight performance was of Bolcom's setting of William Blake's Songs of Innocence and of Experience, performed in Orchestra Hall in Minneapolis with over 400 musicians performing under projections of Blake's accompanying artwork by Wendell K. Harrington.

Music Now

Fest 2009Eastern Michigan University Celebrated it's 16th Biennial Contemporary Music Festival by featuring the guest composer William Bolcom. The three day festival showcased a range of Bolcom's compostions as well as a discussion on "Musical Grass-Roots" led by Bolcom himself

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Welsh Composer- Arwel Hughes (1909-1988)

Born Rhosllanerchrugog, 25 Aug 1909, died Cardiff 23 September 1988.
Welsh composer, conductor and administrator. Arwel Hughes was educated at Ruabon Grammar School near Wrexham and at the Royal College of Music, where he studied with Vaughan Williams and C. H. Kitson. Following his studies at the RCM he became organist at the church of St Philip and St James, Oxford, and in 1935 returned to Wales to join the staff of the BBC’s music department. His duties included a great deal of conducting, and he directed the first performances of many works by Welsh composers, including Grace Williams, David Wynne and Alun Hoddinott. He was also called upon to compose, arrange and orchestrate music for live radio broadcasts.
He became Head of Music of BBC Wales in 1965, a post he held with great esteem until his retirement in 1971. He was appointed OBE in 1969 for his services to Welsh music and for organising the music for the Investiture of the Prince of Wales in the same year. From 1978 until 1986 he was Honorary Music Director of Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod.
For many years Arwel Hughes conducted performances by the Welsh National Opera, and his own two operas, Menna, a tragedy based on a Welsh folk legend, and Serch yw’r Doctor, ‘Love’s the Doctor’, a comedy adapted from Molière, were produced by the company in 1954 and 1960. These works played an important role in the development of opera in Wales, works which demonstrate his attractive lyricism and melodic originality.
He is most revered for his music for chorus and orchestra, a genre in which he excelled. The large-scale oratorios of Dewi Sant (Saint David) and Pantycelyn exemplify his imagination and technical competence and combine the early twentieth century British tradition with his original harmonic language. Gweddi (A Prayer) is a shorter work containing haunting melodies which encapsulate the spirit of the composer. From within there is a personality that is recognisably Celtic.
The composer’s orchestral writing includes a skilfully written Fantasia for Strings which has received many performances. From the 1940’s there followed a stream of works for orchestra including Suite for Orchestra, Prelude for Orchestra, dedicated to the Youth of Wales, Anatiomaros and a Symphony. There are a quantity of songs and chamber music.

Principal works

OPERAS

Menna (3, W Griffith), 1950 -51, perf 1954

Serch yw’r doctor (Love’s the doctor) (3, S. Lewis, after Molière: L’amour médecin), perf. 1960

ORCHESTRAL

Fantasia, str, 1936

Anatiomaros, 1943

Prelude for Orchestra, 1945

Suite, 1947

Saint Francis (masque, G. James), S, T, narrator, chorus, orch 1965

Symphony, 1971

Legend: Owain Glyndwr, 1979

CHORAL

Tydi a Roddaist (T. Rowland Hughes), chorus, piano, also arranged for female chorus, male chorus with orchestra, 1938Gweddi (A Prayer) (liturgical text), S, chorus, str (full orch version also), 1944

Dewi Sant (Saint David) (A.T.Davies), S, T, B, chorus, orch, 1950Pantycelyn (text arr. A. T. Davies(, S, T, B, chorus, orch, 1963

Mab y Dyn (Son of Man) (cantata, biblical text), S, chorus, org, 1967

The Beatitudes (biblical text) S, (T) TTBB, orgIn memoriam (Psalm cxxi), chorus, org, 1969

Psalm 148, male chorus, 1970

Mass for Celebration, S, A, male chorus, orch without ww, 1977

Gloria Patri, SATB orch, 1986

MISCELLANEOUS

3 str quartets, 1948, 1976, 1983;

unfinished quartet 1932;

various choral, orchestral and vocal pieces; many arrangements of folk songs; incidental music for radio and television.

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Contemporary Australian Composer-Carl Vine (b.1954)

Carl Vine (born 8 October 1954) is a prominent Australian classical, theatre, film, television and electronic composer.
Career
Carl Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. He moved to Sydney in 1975, where he is now based as a freelance composer. His association with the Sydney Dance Company began that year when he joined as a rehearsal pianist. Two years later, under the guidance of the company's new artistic director, Graeme Murphy, Carl was commissioned to write music for '"Tip"', featuring amplified string quartet, orchestra and electronics. The premiere of the work in Canberra in 1977 marked the start of Vine's career as a noted composer for Classical Dance. In 1978, once again with Graeme Murphy choreographing, Vine scored Poppy, the first all-Australian full-length ballet.
In 1980, Vine was appointed Lecturer in Electronic Music Composition at the Queensland Conservatorium, while also being the co-director and pianist of the specialist new music performing ensemble "Flederman". In 1984, he became Musical Director of the Australia/New Zealand Choreographic School (Melbourne) and resident composer at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

The last decade

In 2000, Vine was appointed Artistic Director at Musica Viva Australia.
The year 2004 saw his Cello Concerto premiered by Steven Isserlis and the Sydney Symphony, conducted by Jirí Belohlávek. The performance won Best Performance of an Australian Composition at the 2005 APRA/AMC Classical Music Awards.
In 2005 he was awarded the 2005 Don Banks Music Award, the highest available accolade the Australia Council for the Arts can confer on an artist. The award recognises artists who have made an outstanding and sustained contribution to Australian music.
As of 2006, Vine has seven concertos and seven symphonies to his name. The seventh symphony was premièred by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in November 2008 in The Perth Concert Hall.
Vine's work has taken him to Germany, Finland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, and Japan. He enjoys a longstanding recording relationship with ABC. Renowned as a composer, he was asked to be a presenter of a documentary series on Australian television.

Works (a selection)

Concert

Symphony No. 1 'MicroSymphony' (1986)

Symphony No. 2 (1988)

Symphony No. 3 (1988)

Symphony No. 4 'Symphony No. 4.2' (1998; revised same year)

Symphony No. 5 'Percussion Symphony' (1995)

Symphony No. 6 'Choral Symphony' (1996)

Symphony No. 7 'Scenes from Daily Life' (2008)

Percussion Concerto (1987)

Oboe Concerto (1996)

Piano Concerto (1997; commissioned by Michael Kieran Harvey) Pipe Dreams (concerto for flute and strings) (2003)

Cello Concerto (2004)

Gaijin (koto, strings) (1994)

String Quartet No. 3 (1994)
Miniature I 'Peace' (solo viola) (1973)

Miniature II (viola duet) (1974)

Sonata for flute and piano (1992)

Five Bagatelles (solo piano) (1994)

Inner World (solo cello) (1994)

Piano Sonata No. 1 (1990)

Piano Sonata No. 2 (1997)

Piano Sonata No. 3 (2007)

Theatre

The Tempest (ballet) (1991)

Film and television

You Can't Push the River (1993)

Bedevil (1993)

The Battlers (TV) (1994)

40,000 Years of Dreaming (1997)

Marriage Acts (TV) (2000)

The Potato Factory (TV) (2000)

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Norwegian Composer-Geirr Tveitt (1908-1981)

Geirr Tveitt, born Nils Tveit (October 19, 1908 – February 1, 1981), was a Norwegian composer and pianist. Tveitt was a central figure of the national movement in Norwegian cultural life during the 1930s. A talented pianist, Tveitt won considerable acclaim in continental Europe and elsewhere performing his own compositions. His music draws from many styles and traditions, most notably the barbarism of Stravinsky's early ballets, the unique rhythms and textures of Bartók's music and the floating and mystic moods of Debussy and Ravel's music - always underpinned by idioms derived from Norwegian folk-music.

Life

Early years

Tveitt was born in Bergen, on the Norwegian west-coast, where his father briefly worked as a teacher. His family were of farmer stock, and still retained Tveit, their ancestral land in Kvam - a secluded village on the scenic Hardanger fjord. The Tveit family would relocate to Drammen (ca 20 miles south-west of Oslo) in the winter to work, but return to Hardanger in the summer to farm. Thus Tveitt enjoyed both a countryside existence and city life. Tveitt had originally been christened Nils, but following his increasing interest in Norwegian heritage, he thought the name 'not Norwegian enough' and changed it to Geir. He later added an extra r to his first name and an extra t to Tveit to indicate more clearly to non-Norwegians the desired pronunciation of his name. It was during his childhood summers in Hardanger that Tveitt gained knowledge of the rich folk-music traditions of the area. Historically, Hardanger's relative isolation allowed for the development of a unique musical culture, with which Tveitt became infatuated. Tveitt was no child prodigy, but discovered that he possessed musical talent, and learned to play both the violin and the piano. And, after having been encouraged by Norwegian composer Christian Sinding, Tveitt decided to try his hand at writing music too.

Leipzig

In 1928 Tveitt left Norway to be educated. Like so many other Norwegian composers and intellectuals, he headed for Germany - to Leipzig and its Conservatory, which had been the hub of European musical learning and culture for so long. It was an intense time for Tveitt. He studied composition with Hermann Grabner and Leopold Wenninger, and the piano with Otto Weinreich, making extraordinary progress in both fields. The joy of learning from some of the best German educators of the time were often overshadowed by his almost chronic lack of funds - Tveitt having to rely upon translation work and donations to support himself. The Norwegian composer David Monrad-Johansen became Tveitt's great benefactor, and played a key role in helping Tveitt through the student years. Perhaps it was the expatriation from Norway that enkindled in Tveitt a strong desire to embrace completely his Norwegian heritage. Tveitt's profound interest in the modal scales (which forms the basis of the folk-music of many countries) often tested Grabner's patience. However, the latter must have felt great pride when Tveitt had his 12 Two-part Inventions in Lydian, Dorian and Phrygian accepted for publishing by Breitkopf & Hartel in 1930. The following year the Leipzig Radio Orchestra premiered Tveitt's first Piano Concerto - a composition that reflects Tveitt's search for an individual and Norwegian voice.

Amongst the great in Europe

In 1932 Tveitt headed on to Paris. Tveitt had become increasingly frustrated with the teaching in Leipzig, but found a new freedom and inspiration in the French capital. Here he obtained lessons from some of the greatest and most well-known composers of the times: Arthur Honegger and Heitor Villa-Lobos both agreed to see Tveitt. He further managed to enrol in the classes of the legendary educatress Nadia Boulanger. Tveitt also made a visit to Vienna, where he was able to study for some time with Austrian composer Egon J. Wellesz - a pupil of Arnold Schoenberg. Tveitt made one last educational stopover in Paris in 1938 before heading home to Norway to work. Compared to other Norwegian composers contemporary with Tveitt, he had perhaps the most diverse education - and he had already started to make a name for himself. His writings and compositions made quite a stir amongst the establishment in Oslo. In the years leading up to the Second World War, Tveitt derived most of his income working as music critic to 'Sjofartstidende' (The Naval Times). Tveitt's highly opinionated reviews contributed to his securing strong opponents - one of these were the Norwegian composer Pauline Hall. Yet, Tveitt focused his energies on composing - works pouring from his pen like "water from a waterfall". As soon as the Second World War had ended, Tveitt brought his scores with him to Europe, touring extensively - often performing own piano works with similar works by other composers, i.e. Grieg and Chopin. Many of the concerts were great personal and artistic successes for the Norwegian composer, and especially so the 1947 concert in Paris. Here Tveitt premiered his Piano Sonatas nos 1 and 29, some of his adaptations of Hardanger Folk-Songs and also the Fourth Concerto for Piano and Orchestra - Aurora Borealis. The piano concerto was performed in a two-piano version, Tveitt assisted by the French pianist Genevieve Joy. According to reviews, the concerto had thrown the Parisian audience into a paroxysm of ecstasy. Tveitt's intense, glittering, French-Impressionist flavoured rendition of the dancing and mystical northern winter sky, earned him the acclaim of his former teacher - the illustrious Boulanger - in her following review.

Burned to the ground
I

n spite of Tveitt's glorious successes internationally, the contemporary Norwegian establishment remained aloof. Following the upheaval of the Second World War, anything that resembled nationalism or purism was quickly disdained by the post-war intellectuals. Tveitt's aesthetic and music were fundamentally unfashionable. Tveitt struggled financially and became increasingly isolated. He spent more and more time at the family farm in Kvam, keeping his music to himself - all manuscripts neatly filed in wooden chests. The catastrophe could therefore hardly have been any worse when his house burned to the ground in 1970. Tveitt despaired - the original manuscripts to almost 300 opuses (including six piano concertos and two concertos for Hardanger fiddle and orchestra) were reduced to singed bricks of paper - deformed and inseparable. The Norwegian Music Information Centre agreed to archive the remains, but the reality was that 4/5 of Tveitt's production was gone - seemingly forever. Tveitt now found it very difficult to compose and gradually succumbed to alcoholism - several commentators imagine that his many hardships contributed to these conditions. Tveitt died in Norheimsund, Hardanger, reduced, largely embittered and with little hope for the legacy of his professional work.

A great controversy

One of the most delicate and controversial areas of Tveitt's biography is his affiliation with the so-called Neo-Heathenistic movement, which centered around the Norwegian philosopher Hans S. Jacobsen in the 1930s in Oslo. This is a topic that frequently returns in Norwegian public debate. Jacobsen's main thesis - inspired by the theories of the German theologist Jakob Wilhelm Hauer - was the total refutation of Christianity in favour of a new heathen system based upon Norse mythology and the Edda poetry. The movement refuted Christianity and sought to re-introduce the Norse pre-Christian system of belief - the adoration of Odin, Tor and Balder. Jacobsen later became a member of Nasjonal Samling ('National Assembly') - which led the interim, pro-Hitler puppet government during the German occupation of Norway. Even though Geirr Tveitt displayed a deep interest in the theories of the movement, he never enrolled as a member of Nasjonal Samling. His preoccupation with Jacobsen's thinking however, materialised in conspicuous ways; for example Tveitt invented his own non-Christian timeline based upon the arrival of Leif Erikson in what is now Canada. Traces of Antisemitism are often found in his correspondence from the 1930s. The Neo-Heathen system of thought found its way into Tveitt's music; his perhaps most intensely such composition is the ballet Baldur's Dreams. In it, one could argue, Tveitt seeks to establish a link between this world - its creation, cycle and dwellers - and the eternal battle between the benevolent heathen Norse gods and their opponents, the evil jotuns. Tveitt began work on the ballet whilst studying in Leipzig, where it was first performed on 24 February 1938. There Baldur's Dreams became a remarkable success, and performances were later given in Berlin, Tübingen, Bergen and Oslo.
Another result of Tveitt's Norse purism was his development of the theory that the modal scales originally were Norwegian, renaming them in honor of Norse gods. He also developed an intricate diatonic theory, which interconnected the modal scales through a system of double leading notes. These ideas were published in his 1937 argument Tonalitätstheorie des parallellen Leittonsystems. Even though most musicologists agree that Tveitt's theories are colored by his personal convictions - his thesis is intelligent, challenging and thought-provoking.
The issue of Tveitt's inglorious relationship with so-called 'nazi-ideologies' is so delicate that most scholars have avoided it altogether. Some commentators have noticed that one of the foremost Norwegian authorities on Tveitt, Hallgjerd Aksnes, PhD., did not address this question in her article on Tveitt in the New Grove Dictionary of Music. Tveitt's connection to far-right German thinking is perhaps a question scholars will return to as the world understand the dynamics of a troubled period in European history more fully. For Tveitt, the question proved devastating to his reputation, and contributed significantly to his becoming a persona-non-grata in the post-war musical establishment in Norway. However, as the most traumatic years of European history is now becoming more distant, a new generation of academics and musicians are approaching Tveitt and his music. Most of Tveitt's remaining music is now commercially available on records.

Music

Introduction

Very few of Tveitt's works had been published or properly archived at institutions - aggravating the effects of the 1970 fire. Tveitt himself made visits to universities across Norway, and wrote to friends, asking for spare copies and parts - but little was found. However, over the years, copies of quite a few scores have turned up, and others have been reconstructed from orchestral parts, or from radio and magnetic tape recordings.

The great treasure of Hardanger

Tveitt's perhaps greatest musical project was the collection and adaptation of traditional folk melodies from the Hardanger district. Many composers and musicologists (including Norway's internationally recognised Edvard Grieg) had successfully researched and collected the music of Hardanger long before Tveitt. However, from 1940 onwards, when Tveitt settled permanently in Hardanger, he became one of the locals, and spent much time working and playing with folk-musicians. He thus happened upon a treasure of unknown tunes, claiming to have discovered almost one thousand melodies, and incorporated one hundred of these into his worklist; Fifty folktunes from Hardanger for piano op. 150, and Hundred Hardanger Tunes for Orchestra op. 151. Musicologist David Gallagher might speak for many when he suggests that in these two opuses - their universe, music and history - are found the very best of Tveitt's qualities as a composer. The tunes reflect both profound (in fact) Christian values and a parallel universe dominated by the mysticism of nature itself and not only the worldly, but also netherworldly creatures that inhabit it - according to traditional folklore. The major part of the tunes is directly concerned with Hardanger life, which Tveitt was a part of. In his adaptations, therefore, he sought to bring forth not only the melody itself, but also the atmosphere, mood and scenery in which it belonged. Tveitt utilised his profound knowledge of traditional and avant-garde use of harmony and instruments when he scored the tunes - achieving an individual and recognisable texture. Copies of the piano versions and orchestral suites nos 1, 2, 4 and 5 were elsewhere during that tragic fire in 1970, so these works survive. Norwegian musicologists hope that suite nos 3 and 6 might be restored from the burned-out remnants held at the archives in Oslo.
Songs for the common Norwegian
Tveitt's works remained largely misunderstood and unappreciated by his contemporary Norwegian musical establishment. However, Tveitt won the hearts of a whole nation with his radio programmes on folk music at the Norweigian National Broadcasting (NRK) in the 1960s and '70s. Tveitt worked as Assistant Producer to the radio, where he also premiered numerous songs written to texts by respected and well-known Norwegian poets like Knut Hamsun, Arnulf Overland, Aslaug Vaa and Herman Wildenvey. Many Norwegians remember perhaps Tveitt most fondly for his tune to Aslaug Laastad Lygre's poem We should not sleep in summer nights. Tveitt could not impress the musical intelligentsia with his complicated and refined scores, but won the affection of the commoner with simple lyrical tunes of a clearly Norwegian curve. In 1980 Tveitt was awarded the Lindeman prize for the work he had done through the NRK.
Recordings and research
Today Norway is seeing the advent of a new generation of musicians and musicologists, who seem to be primarily concerned with Tveitt's music and not so much with the controversies he inspired. Starting in the late 1990s the Norwegian government began to provide some funding for the examination and preservation of the remains of Tveitt's scores, and several startling discoveries have been made. Thought to have been lost for all time, Baldur's Dreams appeared amongst the damaged manuscripts, and its fate is illustrative. Tveitt made numerous versions of the ballet - in Paris he presented a reworked score Dances from Baldur's Dreams. Tveitt then sent it to the choreographer Serge Lifar in London, where the score allegedly was lost in the Blitz.
However, after the singed manuscripts held at the NMIC were examined in 1999, it became apparent that Tveitt indeed had a copy of the 1938 original score - and through tedious restoration work by Norwegian composer Kaare Dyvik Husby and Russian composer Alexej Rybnikov, the ballet literally rose from the ashes. It is now available on BIS-CD-1337/1338, where Ole Kristian Ruud conducts the Stavanger Symphony Orchestra. A TV documentary program Baldur's Dreams on the incredible fate of the ballet was broadcast in Norway on June 15, 2008, and attracted nationwide interest.
Another reconstruction project worth mentioning is the reconstruction of the solo piano piece Morild. The title alludes to the mysterious phenomenon of phosphorescence of the sea, and it was amongst the treasures lost in the 1970 fire. Fortunately, a recording of the work made by Tveitt for French national radio in 1952 has survived. It was issued for the first time on Simax in 1994. A reconstruction of the score was undertaken by the American transcription specialist Chris Eric Jensen in 2005 in collaboration with the pianist Håvard Gimse. Gimse will give the piece its first performance on Tveitt's 100th birthday on October 19, 2008 - first time performance by another pianist but the composer himself.

Worklist

The major part of Tveitt's scores are published by the Norwegian Music Information Centre, and the archives of the Society of Norwegian Composers.
Baldur's Dreams - music from the ballet. Concerto No. 1 for Hardanger fiddle and orchestra. Concerto No. 2 for Hardanger fiddle and orchestra - 'Three Fjords' Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra. Concerto No. 3 for piano and orchestra (this work only exists as a 1947 recording, Geirr Tveitt, piano). Concerto No. 4 for piano and orchestra 'Aurora Borealis' (Northern Lights). Concerto No. 5 for piano and orchestra. Concerto No. 2 for harp and orchestra. Fifty Hardanger Tunes - arranged for piano, Op. 150. Halldor Meland A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.1. A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.2. A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.4. A Hundred Hardanger Tunes, Op. 151 - Suite No.5. Jeppe, opera. Nykken (The Water Sprite), symphonic poem for large orchestra. Piano Sonata No. 29, Op.129, 'Sonata Etere'. Prillar - suite in Norwegian modes, 1931. Sun God Symphony, for orchestra (abridged version of Baldur's Dreams) Symphony No. 1 'Christmas', 1958. (Reconstructed for the 2008 Bergen Festival.) Telemarkin - Cantata for voice and orchestra. The Turtle for mezzo-soprano and orchestra. Text from Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath. Variations on a Folk song from Hardanger, for two pianos and orchestra.

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Finnish Composer- Einojuhani Rautavaara

Einojuhani Rautavaara (born October 9, 1928) is a Finnish composer of contemporary classical music, and is one of the most notable Finnish composers after Jean Sibelius.
LifeRautavaara was born in Helsinki and studied at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki under Aarre Merikanto from 1948 to 1952 before he was recommended a scholarship to study at the Juilliard School in New York City. There he was taught by Vincent Persichetti, and he also took lessons from Roger Sessions and Aaron Copland at Tanglewood. He first came to international attention when he won the Thor Johnson Contest for his composition A Requiem in Our Time in 1954.
Rautavaara served as a non-tenured teacher at the Sibelius Academy from 1957 to 1959, music archivist of the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra from 1959 to 1961, rector of the Käpylä Music Institute in Helsinki from 1965 to 1966, tenured teacher at the Sibelius Academy from 1966 to 1976, artist professor (appointed by the Arts Council of Finland) from 1971 to 1976, and professor of composition at the Sibelius Academy from 1976 to 1990.
Rautavaara had a serious seizure at the beginning of 2004 but has since recovered.
MusicRautavaara is a prolific composer and has written in a variety of forms and styles. He experimented with serial techniques in his early career but left them behind in the 1960s and even his serial works are not obviously serial. His third symphony, for example, uses such techniques, but sounds more like Anton Bruckner than it does a more traditional serialist such as Pierre Boulez. His later works often have a mystical element (such as in several works with titles making reference to angels). A characteristic 'Rautavaara sound' might be a rhapsodic string theme of austere beauty, with whirling flute lines, gently dissonant bells, and perhaps the suggestion of a pastoral horn.
His compositions include eight symphonies, several concertos, choral works (several for unaccompanied choir, including Vigilia (1971–1972)), sonatas for various instruments, string quartets and other chamber music, and a number of biographical operas including Vincent (1986–1987, based on the life of Vincent Van Gogh), Aleksis Kivi (1995–1996) and Rasputin (2001–2003). A number of his works have parts for magnetic tape, including Cantus Arcticus (1972, also known as Concerto for Birds & Orchestra) for taped bird song and orchestra, and True and False Unicorn (1971, second version 1974, revised 2001–02), the final version of which is for three reciters, choir, orchestra and tape.
His latest works include orchestral works Book of Visions (2003–2005), Manhattan Trilogy (2003–2005) and Before the Icons (2005) which is an expanded version of his early piano work Icons. In 2005 he finished a work for violin and piano called Lost Landscapes, commissioned by the violinist Midori Goto. A new orchestral work, A Tapestry of Life, was premiered by the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra in April 2008, directed by Pietari Inkinen.
Many of Rautavaara's works have been recorded, with a performance of his seventh symphony, Angel of Light (1995), by the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Leif Segerstam on the Ondine label, being a particular critical and popular success - it was nominated for several awards, including a Grammy. Rautavaara's Symphony No. 8 has, so far, been recorded 4 times, certainly rare in contemporary classical music.
Almost all of Rautavaara's works have been recorded by Ondine. Some of his major works have also been recorded by Naxos.
Rautavaara is currently working on a large-scale opera based on texts by Federico García Lorca.
Works

Operas

Apollo contra Marsyas (1970) The Myth of Sampo (1974/1982) Thomas (1982–1985) Vincent (1986–1987) The House of the Sun (Auringon talo), chamber opera (1989–1990) The Gift of the Magi (Tietäjien lahja), chamber opera (1993–1994) Aleksis Kivi (1995–1996) Rasputin (2001–2003)

Symphonies

Symphony No. 1 (1956/1988/2003) Symphony No. 2: Sinfonia intima (1957/1984) Symphony No. 3 (1961) Symphony No. 4: Arabescata (1962) Symphony No. 5 (1985-1986) Symphony No. 6: Vincentiana (1992) Symphony No. 7: Angel of Light (1994) Symphony No. 8: The Journey (1999)

Concertos

Piano Concertos: Piano Concerto No. 1 (1969) Piano Concerto No. 2 (1989) Piano Concerto No. 3: Gift of Dreams (1998) Violin Concerto (1976–1977) Cello Concerto (1968) Double Bass Concerto: Angel of Dusk (1980) Flute Concerto: Dances with the Winds (1973) Clarinet Concerto (2001) Harp Concerto (2000) Organ Concerto: Annunciations (1976–1977)

Choral Orchestral

Concerto for Soprano, Choir and Orchestra: Daughter of the Sea (Meren tytär) (1971) Children's Mass (Lapsimessu), for children's choir and orchestra (1973) On the Last Frontier, fantasy for chorus and orchestra (1997)

Other Orchestral Works

Praevariata (1957) Modificata (1957) Anadyomene: Adoration of Aphrodite (1968) Cantus Arcticus (1972) Angels and Visitations (1978) Ostrobothnian Polska (1980) Isle of Bliss (Lintukoto) (1995) Autumn Gardens (1999) Garden of Spaces (2003) Book of Visions (2003–2005) Before the Icons (2005) A Tapestry of Life (2007)

String Orchestra

The Fiddlers (Pelimannit) (1952/1972) Suite for Strings (1952) Divertimento (1953) An Epitaph for Bela Bartok (1955/1986) Canto I (1960) Canto II (1961) Canto III (1972) Ballade for harp and strings (1973/1981) A Finnish Myth (1977) Hommage à Kodaly Zoltan (1982) Hommage à Liszt Ferenc (1989) Canto IV (1992) Adagio celeste (2000) Manhattan Trilogy (2003–2005)

Brass Band

A Requiem in our Time (1953) A Military Mass (Sotilasmessu) (1968) Playgrounds for Angels (1981)

Chamber/Instrumental

String Quartets: String Quartet No. 1 (1952) String Quartet No. 2 (1958) String Quartet No. 3 (1965) String Quartet No. 4 (1975) Wind Octet (1962) Clarinet Sonata (1969) Cello Sonatas: Cello Sonata No. 1 (1972–1973/2001) Cello Sonata No. 2 (1991) Ballad, for harp and strings (1973/1981) Sonata for Flute and Guitar (1975) Serenades of the Unicorn, for guitar (1977) Monologues of the Unicorn, for guitar (1980) String Quintet: Unknown Heavens (1997) Hymnus, for trumpet and organ (1998) Lost Landscapes, for violin and piano (2005) April Lines, for violin and piano (2006) The Last Runo, for flute quintet (2007) Summer Thoughts, for violin and piano (2008)

Piano

Three Symmetrical Preludes, (1949-50) Icons, Op. 6 (1955) Preludes, Op. 7 (1956) Partita, Op. 34 (1956–8) Etudes, Op. 42 (1969) Piano Sonatas: Piano Sonata No. 1: Christus und die Fischer, Op. 50 (1969) Piano Sonata No. 2: The Fire Sermon, Op. 64 (1970) Music for Upright Piano No. 1 (1976) Music for Upright Piano No. 2 (1976) Narcissus (2001) Passionale (2003) Fuoco (2007)
Choral

Ludus verbalis, motet for declamatory choir (1960) Praktisch Deutsch, motet for declamatory choir (1969) True & False Unicorn, cantata (1971/2000) All-Night Vigil (Vigilia), for chorus and soloists (1971–1972/1996) Book of Life (Elämän kirja), choral suite (1972) Lorca Suite, for mixed or children's choir (1973) The Bride (Morsian), choral song (1975) The Departure (Lähtö), choral song (1975) Summer Night (Sommarnatten), choral song (1975) Magnificat, choral mass (1979) Nirvana Dharma, for chorus, soprano, and flute (1979) The Cathedral (Katedralen), for chorus and soloists (1982) Legenda, for male choir (1985) Cancion de nuestro tiempo, choral suite (1993) Die erste Elegie, choral song (1993) With the Joy We Go Dancing (Och glädjen den dansar), choral song (1993) In the Shade of the Willow (Halavan himmeän alla), choral song (1998)

Vocal

Three Sonnets of Shakespeare (1951/2005) Sacred Feasts (Pyhiä päiviä) (1953) Five Sonnets to Orpheus (1955–56/1960) Die Liebenden (1958–1959/1964) God's Way (Guds väg) (1964/2003) The Trip (Matka) (1977) Dream World (Maailman uneen) (1972–1982) In my Lover's Garden (I min älsklings trädgård) (1983–87)

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British Composers-Lennox Berkley

BIOGRAPHY(1903 - 1989)

Although Lennox Berkeley, born near Oxford on 12th May 1903, had begun composing as a child, he did not initially plan a career in music. He studied at Gresham’s School, Holt (which his colleague and sometime collaborator Benjamin Britten was to attend a decade later), then read French and Philology at Merton College, Oxford. and read Modern Languages at Oxford. There he wrote his first published work, a song The Thresher, and after encouragement from Ravel he moved to Paris in 1926 to study with Nadia Boulanger. During this time he met Stravinsky and A nephew of the church reformer John Wesley and son of Charles Wesley, becoming a life-long friend of the latter.
In 1928 he became a Roman Catholic, which was to have a profound effect on his work. During the Second World War, he worked as programme planner for the BBC in London, and married Elizabeth Freda Bernstein in 1946 (his eldest son, Michael, has achieved recognition as a composer in his own right).
Another significant friendship was begun in 1936 at the ISCM Festival in Barcelona, when he met Britten, with whom he composed Mont Juic, based on Catalan folk-tunes they heard in a park. Despite being ten years Berkeleys junior, Britten was an important mentor to him in his development. Berkeleys reputation was established in the early 1940s with the premires of the Serenade for Strings (1939), First Symphony (1940) and Divertimento (1943).
Apart from Ravel, Faure, the neoclassical works of Stravinsky and Britten, Berkeleys personal voice was also influenced by Mozart and Chopin. His music is marked by elegance, charm, wit and masterly craftsmanship.
Apart from composing, Berkeley taught from 1946 to 1968 at the Royal Academy, where his pupils included John Tavener, Richard Rodney Bennett, William Mathias and Nicholas Maw. He was knighted in 1974. Other honours include the Papal Knighthood of St Gregory (1973), a doctorate from Oxford University (1970) and membership of the American Academy of Arts and Letters (1980). During 1976-79 he was a Professor at Keele University, and from 1977 to 1983 was President of the Cheltenham Festival. His later years were marked by declining health, but he continued composing regularly until his 75th year. Berkeley died in London on 26th December 1989.
Although his early years were marked by uncertainty over stylistic direction, Berkeley amassed a catalogue of over a hundred works and contributed to almost every genre. His major works included four operas, four symphonies and several concertos, while his choral music ranks among the most significant from British composers of his generation. His chamber output includes pieces written for a wide variety of ensembles and combinations. Central to this are the three string quartets that occur at regular intervals during the first half of his career. Among his finest achievements are the one-movement Third Symphony (1969), Horn Trio (1953) and the Four Poems of St Teresa of Avila (1947). His legacy also includes a significant body of compositions setting sacred texts and liturgy. These sprang from his strong personal faith, and membership of the Roman Catholic Church.
In an article "Truth in Music" (1966), Berkeley offered his views about composing works for the church: Being a Roman Catholic, I have naturally been drawn to the Latin liturgy and felt at home with it; its part of my life, and I have wanted to bring to it what I have to offer, however unworthy.

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Russian/ German Composer-Alfred Schnittke

Alfred Schnittke April 6, 1989, MoscowAlfred Garyevich Schnittke (Russian:, November 24, 1934 Engels - August 3, 1998 Hamburg) was a Russian and Soviet composer. Schnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich. He developed a polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony (1969-1972) and First Concerto Grosso (1977). In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad. In the 1980s, he wrote his Second (1980) and Third (1983) String Quartets and the String Trio (1985); the ballet Peer Gynt (1985-1987); the Third (1981), Fourth (1984) and Fifth (1988) Symphonies; and the Viola (1985) and 1st Cello (1985-1986) Concertos. As his health deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of the extroversion of his polystylism and retreated into a more withdrawn, bleak style.
Biography

Schnittke's father was born in Frankfurt to a Jewish family of Russian origin. He moved to the USSR in 1926. His mother was a Volga German born in Russia.
Alfred Schnittke was born in Engels in the Volga-German Republic of the RSFSR, Soviet Union. He began his musical education in 1946 in Vienna where his father, a journalist and translator, had been posted. In 1948, the family moved to Moscow. He completed his graduate work in composition at the Moscow Conservatory in 1961 and taught there from 1962 to 1972. Evgeny Golubev was one of his composition teachers. Thereafter, he supported himself mainly by composing film scores and composed nearly 70 scores in 30 years.[1] Schnittke converted to Christianity and possessed deeply held mystic beliefs which influenced his music.
Schnittke was often the target of the Soviet bureaucracy. His First Symphony was effectively banned by the Composers' Union, and after he abstained from a Composers' Union vote in 1980, he was banned from travelling outside of the USSR. In 1985, Schnittke suffered a stroke which left him in a coma. He was declared clinically dead on several occasions, but recovered and continued to compose. In 1990, Schnittke left Russia and settled in Hamburg. His health remained poor, however, and he suffered several more strokes before his death on August 3, 1998 in Hamburg.
MusicSchnittke's early music shows the strong influence of Dmitri Shostakovich, but after the visit of the Italian composer Luigi Nono to the USSR, he took up the serial technique in works such as Music for Piano and Chamber Orchestra (1964). However, Schnittke soon became dissatisfied with what he termed the "puberty rites of serial self-denial" and moved on to a new style which has been called "polystylism", where music of various different styles past and present are juxtaposed (the composer once wrote "The goal of my life is to unify serious music and light music, even if I break my neck in doing so"). The first concert work to use the polystylistic technique was the Second Violin Sonata, Quasi una sonata (1967-1968), but the influence of Schnittke's film work on his stylistic development is shown by the fact that much of the music of this work was derived from a score for the animation short The Glass Harmonica. He continued to develop the polystylistic technique in works such as the epic First Symphony (1969-1972) and First Concerto Grosso (1977), but also composed more stylistically unified works such as the Piano Quintet (1972-1976), written in memory of his recently deceased mother.
In the 1980s, Schnittke's music began to become more widely known abroad, thanks in part to the work of emigre Soviet artists such as the violinists Gidon Kremer and Mark Lubotsky. Despite constant illness, he produced a large amount of music, including important works such as the Second (1980) and Third (1983) String Quartets and the String Trio (1985); the Faust Cantata (1983), which he later incorporated in his opera Historia von D. Johann Fausten; the ballet Peer Gynt (1985-1987); the Third (1981), Fourth (1984) and Fifth (1988) Symphonies (the last of which incorporates his Fourth Concerto Grosso) and the Viola (1985) and 1st Cello (1985-1986) Concertos.
As his health further deteriorated, Schnittke's music started to abandon much of the extroversion of his polystylism and retreat into a more withdrawn, bleak style. The Fourth Quartet (1989) and Sixth (1992), Seventh (1993) and Eighth (1994) symphonies are good examples of this, and some Schnittke scholars such as Gerard McBurney have argued that it is the late works which will ultimately be the most influential parts of Schnittke's output. After a further stroke in 1994 left him almost completely paralysed, Schnittke largely ceased to compose, though some short works emerged in 1997 and a Ninth Symphony was left almost unreadable at his death. This Ninth Symphony was later deciphered by Alexander Raskatov. It was premiered in Dresden, Germany June 16th, 2007.

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