The Vertigo Suite was arranged by Bernard Herrmann himself. Drawing directly from his 1958 film score for Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo, Herrmann crafted the concert suite in the same year, selecting and shaping the principal themes into a unified...

Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 10 in E minor, Op. 93, completed in 1953, is one of his most profound and powerful works. Written after Stalin’s death, it is often interpreted as a reflection on the oppressive Soviet regime and the...

George Gershwin’s An American in Paris is a symphonic poem that vividly captures the energy and charm of Paris through the perspective of an American traveler. Premiered in 1928, the piece blends jazz elements with classical orchestration,...

Jean Sibelius composed the incidental music for Shakespeare's "The Tempest," Op. 109, between 1925 and 1926, marking one of his final major works before his retreat from public composition. Commissioned for a production at Copenhagen's Royal Theatre, the...

The Symphony No. 8 in C minor, Op. 65, by Dmitri Shostakovich was written in the summer of 1943, and first performed on 4 November of that year by the USSR Symphony Orchestra under Yevgeny Mravinsky, to whom the work is dedicated. It briefly was...

Five Tudor Portraits (1935), by Ralph Vaughan Williams, is a work scored for contralto (or mezzo-soprano), baritone, mixed chorus and orchestra. It sets several poems, or extracts from poems, by the 15th/16th-century poet John Skelton, portraying five...

Given Ottorino Respighi’s outstanding mastery in handling the modern orchestra and his superb gifts for impressionist tone-painting (the very qualities cited by the many detractors and adversaries of this great composer), it is astonishing how...