The music is light, even at times satirical, and overflowing with popular turns and dance rhythms. (Ravel is said to have admitted to Poulenc that he envied his ability to “write his own folksongs.”)  It is in four movements:...

REPRINT SERIES Ottorino Respighi’s hour-long Sinfonia drammatica, which he completed just before the First World War broke out, appears to anticipate the impending tragedy. The brilliantly orchestrated composition (with six horns, four percussion,...

REPRINT SERIES The Stone Flower was the last of Prokofiev’s Soviet ballets, dating from 1948, and is based on a folk tale from the Urals. The Suite contains music of great beauty, with soaring tunes that are as memorable as anything in the two...

REPRINT SERIES Symphony: Mathis der Maler (Matthias the Painter) is among the most famous orchestral works of German composer Paul Hindemith. Music from the symphony was incorporated into, or reworked for, Hindemith's opera Mathis der Maler, which...

REPRINT SERIES Notable for being a one-movement symphony, in contrast to the standard symphonic formula of four movements. The concept of a continuous, single-movement symphony was one Sibelius only reached after a long process of experimentation. It has...

Divertissement is the French equivalent of “diversion,” in the sense of amusement or entertainment; this title Ibert gave to the concert suite he drew from his incidental music to a 1929 production of one of the greatest French farces, The...

Bachianas Brasileiras No. 2 is the second of a set of nine suites (1930–45) for various combinations of voices and instruments, in which contrapuntal and harmonic techniques in the manner of J.S. Bach are applied to themes of Brazilian origin. It...

"Montagues and Capulets", known by its proper title as "Dance of the Knights", is a work of classical music written by Russian composer Sergei Prokofiev for his 1935 ballet "Romeo and Juliet". Extracted from Suite No.2 Op.64ter

It is the third orchestral work in Respighi's "Roman trilogy", preceded by Fountains of Rome (1916) and Pines of Rome (1924). Each of the four movements depict a scene of celebration from Ancient Rome. It is the longest and most demanding of the trilogy...

REPRINT SERIES Originally composed as a ballet commissioned by Russian ballerina Ida Rubinstein, Boléro is a one-movement orchestral piece and is Ravel's most famous musical composition.

Romeo and Juliet Suite No.3 Op.101 has 6 movements and is the briefest of the three suites extracted from the Ballet, lasting just under twenty minutes. 1.Romeo at the Fountain2. .Morning Dance3.Juliet4.The Nurse5.Aubade6.The Death of Juliet

As is the usual case with Bachianas Brasileiras, Villa-Lobos stressed the conjunction of Bach and Brazil by giving dual titles in Portuguese to each movement, one reflecting a Bach form, the other suggesting the Brazilian nature of the music. Originally...

Honegger's Fourth Symphony, which contains musical quotations from two Basel folk songs, expresses the composer's happiness during a pleasant stay in the Swiss countryside after the end of World War II.Despite the pastoral and often joyous mood...

EDITION ZEZA REPRINT SERIES It is unusual among Bax's tone poems in that it is written for a much more normally sized orchestra than he was prone to demand. In this case the heavier brass -- usually the orchestral section most tasked and taxed in a Bax...

A visit to Brazil resulted in the composition Impressioni brasiliane (Brazilian Impressions). He had intended to write a sequence of five pieces, but by 1928 he had completed only three, and decided to present what he had. The first piece is a nocturne,...

EDITION ZEZA REPRINT SERIESBartók divides the strings into two groups which he directs should be placed antiphonally on opposite sides of the stage, and he makes use of antiphonal effects particularly in the second and fourth movements.The piece...

EDITION ZEZA REPRINT SERIES: Some parts may contain markings.The Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116 is a five-movement musical work for orchestra and one of Bartok's best-known, most popular and most accessible works. I. Introduzione. Andante non troppo -...

Richard Strauss: Metamorphosen, Study for 23 Solo Strings, subtitled "In memoriam" is scored for ten violins, five violas, five cellos, and three contrabasses. The work unfolds in a single, long movement. Strauss sustains and develops a series of...