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...

Sunset Boulevard was nominated for eleven Oscars, winning 3 of them, for Best Screenplay, Best Art Direction and Waxman's score for Best Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. In 2005, Waxman’s score was listed as among the twenty-five most...

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...

REPRINT SERIES  Stravinsky wrote the symphony from 1942–45 on commission by the Philharmonic Symphony Society of New York. It was premièred by the New York Philharmonic Orchestra under Stravinsky on January 24, 1946.The Symphony in...

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 Capriccio for ten instrumentsfor flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon, trumpet, harp, two violins, viola, and cello

Coastal Command is a 1942 British film made by the Crown Film Unit for the Ministry of Information. The film, distributed by RKO, dramatised the work of RAF Coastal Command.Coastal Command is a documentary-style account of the Short Sunderland and...

God is gone up is the second of his three opus 27 anthems. It was written in 1951 for a St Cecilia's Day Service at St Sepulchre's Church in Holborn. This well-written anthem of praise, which, like Bairstow's works, stretches the organ's resources,...

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...

 Carmen Fantasie is a virtuoso showpiece for violin and orchestra. The piece is part of Franz Waxman's score to the 1946 movie Humoresque for which he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture. The...

REPRINT SERIES The origins of this piece can be traced back to an incident that occurred during a rehearsal at the inaugural Aspen Festival in 1950, when Stravinsky was displeased by a surprise rendition of "Happy Birthday to You", a song with which he...

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...