Benjamin Britten’s Scottish Ballad, Op. 26, is a concertante work for two pianos and orchestra composed in 1941. Britten wrote it for the piano-duet team Ethel Bartlett and Rae Robertson, and the piece belongs to his wartime output of compact,...

Frank Martin’s Concerto for seven wind instruments, timpani, percussion and string orchestra, IFM 6, was composed in 1949 at the request of the Bernische Musikgesellschaft.  The work is cast in three movements — Allegro, Adagietto, and...

Benjamin Britten’s Four Sea Interludes, Op. 33a, is a concert suite extracted from his opera Peter Grimes, first performed in 1945. Britten selected four orchestral interludes from the opera and arranged them as a self-contained work for the...

Benjamin Britten composed Soirées musicales, Op. 9, in 1935–36, drawing on melodies by Gioachino Rossini, particularly from Rossini’s vocal collection Soirées musicales of the 1830s. The suite grew out of incidental music...

Walter Piston’s The Incredible Flutist is a one-act ballet composed in 1938 with a libretto by Piston and Hans Wiener; it is his only work for the stage and was premiered by the Boston Pops under Arthur Fiedler on 30 May 1938. The work paints a...

The Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra, Op. 34 (subtitle Variations and Fugue on a Theme of Purcell) was written by Benjamin Britten in 1945 for a British Ministry of Education film, Instruments of the Orchestra; the film version (with narration...

Benjamin Britten’s Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68, was composed in 1963 and dedicated to Mstislav Rostropovich, who gave the premiere with Britten conducting the Moscow Philharmonic on 12 March 1964. The work’s title reflects...

Manuel de Falla’s Suite No. 2, Three Dances from El sombrero de tres picos, is an orchestral extraction of the principal dances from Part II of the 1919 ballet. he suite is scored for a medium-to-large orchestra with an emphasis on percussion...

Manuel de Falla’s Suite No. 1, Scenes and Dances from El sombrero de tres picos, is an orchestral extraction of the principal dances from Part I of the 1919 ballet. Musically the suite condenses the ballet’s Andalusian...

Manuel de Falla’s El retablo de maese Pedro (Master Peter’s Puppet Show) is a one-act puppet-opera with prologue and epilogue, set to a Spanish libretto drawn from Cervantes’s Don Quixote. The score is compact—about 27...

Darius Milhaud’s Les Cloches, Op. 259 (“The Bells”), dates from 1946 and is a six‑movement symphonic suite adapted from his lost ballet after Edgar Allan Poe’s poem. The movements—Ouverture: Animé; Cloches...

Heitor Villa‑Lobos’s Vidapura (Missa Oratório), W155, was composed in 1919 as an expanded, orchestral version of his earlier organ‐accompanied Missa Oratória (W154) and premiered in November 1922 in Rio de Janeiro. Structured in...

Sir Arthur Bliss’s Serenade for Baritone and Orchestra (F. 163), was composed in 1929 and first performed on 18 March 1930 at a London concert under the composer’s baton with baritone John Goss as soloist. The cycle lasts approximately 26...

MAPESU Music proudly presents this brand new engraving and revised edition of Shostakovich’s Piano Concerto No. 2 in F major, Op. 102 was composed in 1957 for the 19th birthday of his son Maxim, who gave the premiere performance at his graduation...

Bruno Maderna’s Violin Concerto, was composed in 1969 and premiered at the XXXII International Contemporary Music Festival in Venice on 12 September 1969, with Theo Olof as soloist and Maderna himself conducting. Maderna’s orchestration is...

Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 in E-flat major, Op. 107, composed in 1959 for Mstislav Rostropovich, is one of the most significant cello concertos of the 20th century. The work is structured in four movements, played without pause, and...

Dmitri Shostakovich composed his Symphony No. 9 in E-flat major, Op. 70 in 1945, following the Soviet victory in World War II. Unlike the grand, triumphant symphony many expected, it is a light, neoclassical work with a modest orchestration. The...

Darius Milhaud's Cinéma-Fantaisie sur "Le Bœuf sur le toit", Op. 58b, is a vibrant and playful work for violin and orchestra, adapted from his earlier ballet Le Bœuf sur le toit , available here. This version maintains the...