Fritz Kreisler's Tambourin Chinois, Op. 3, is a virtuosic showpiece for violin and orchestra that encapsulates exoticism, playfulness, and technical brilliance. Composed in 1910, the piece reflects the Western fascination with Asian culture prevalent at...

REPRINT SERIES Ottorino Respighi's Burlesca for Orchestra, P. 59, composed in 1906, is an exuberant and vibrant work that exemplifies the composer's early exploration of orchestral color and rhythm. Written during a period when Respighi was refining his...

“To orchestrate is like a thumbprint. I can’t understand having someone else do it. It would be like someone putting color to your paintings.” Musically precocious, Bernard Herrmann (b. 1911, New York City; d.1975, North Hollywood)...

REPRINT SERIES  The Piano Concerto was written in 1949 for the Fryderyk Chopin Competition organised by the Polish Composers’ Union to mark the 100th anniversary of the Polish genius’ death. However, it is no use looking for any...

Vaughan Williams composed three Norfolk Rhapsodies in 1905 and 1906, basing them on folk tunes he had collected around the Wash. But only the first of them has remained in the repertory, relished as one of the composer's fondest and most ravishing...

REPRINT SERIES With a rumble of timpani and raw strokes of open strings, the Overture begins with a blazing Allegro. The strings take off in running figures punctuated by brass blasts and woodwind interjections. Even when the orchestra suddenly drops...

This orchestral arrangement of Chopin’s piano music was one of a pair commissioned from Stravinsky by Diaghilev as part of Les Sylphides for performances by the Ballets Russes at the spectacular first saison russe of opera and ballet at the...

The symphony is a short (about 20 minutes) experimental work in one movement; within this movement are four sections, the last of which includes a chorus. In a marked departure from his First Symphony, Shostakovich composed his Second in a gestural,...

REPRINT SERIES  Villa-Lobos own transcription from Bach's "The Well-Tempered Clavier" for Orchestra of Cellos. It includes the following movements: Prelude XXIIFugue VPrelude XIVFugue IPrelude XIIIFugue VIIIFugue XXI  

In the words of the composer, The Sinfonietta was written on board the S.S. Christoforo Coloumbo en route from New York to Europe. I was going to Europe for a conducting tour which included an appearance with Radio Symphony Orchestra in Zurich,...

REPRINT SERIES The Partita dates from 1955, after Bacewicz had recovered from a serious car accident in the fall of 1954 that led to a lengthy hospital stay. The neoclassical traits apparent in her earlier work gave way to a distinctly “innovatory...

REPRINT SERIESProkofiev's Symphony No. 1 (1916-17) represents the composer's earliest mature effort in a genre he returned to time and again for the remainder of his career. Though the symphony received a warm reception in Russia and abroad -- and...

 Luigi Dallapiccola was spurred to write his Tartiniana seconda, for violin accompanied by either piano or orchestra, by violinist Sandro Materassi; hoping for a sequel to Dallapiccola's well-received first Tartiniana, Materassi came to him with...

REPRINT SERIES British oboist Léon Goossens (1897-1988) is credited with reestablishing the oboe as a solo instrument and elevating its status after it fell out of favor in the nineteenth century. Romantic composers preferred the facility and...

Herrmann, for all his Angst, was a New Yorker born and bred. His Sinfonietta was composed in 1936, just before his film career took off. It contains what Steven Smith, Herrmann's biographer, describes as ''a quality dissonant Interlude''. Many years...

Following the composition of Five Mystical Songs in 1911, Vaughan Williams began to compose a smaller scale piece, which was completed in 1914. However, World War I delayed the presentation of the song cycle until 1920. In setting the four hymns to...

While Shostakovich wrote this piece as his graduation exercise from Maximilian Steinberg's composition class, some of the material may have dated from considerably earlier. The immediate parallel to the 19-year-old composer presenting his first symphony...

REPRINT SERIES  Though not readily associated with Anglican church music (despite being fully aware of its repertoire), Elgar composed two major extended anthems. The first—Great is the Lord, Op 67, a substantial multi-sectional work, begun...