MusiLLection

Strauss often played in the glittering Imperial balls, conducting the orchestra and playing the first violin at the same time.   The majestic launch of this fascinating waltz presents the backdrop of the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the hegemony of the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph in 1888. Johann Strauss II was Music Director of the Dance Hesperides of the Imperial Court from 1863 to 1872 and composed on occasion for the celebration of an imperial anniversary. The ingenuity of the melody of the Emperor Waltz, which was originally orchestrated for a full orchestra, is such that it was easily adapted for the four or five instruments of a chamber ensemble by the Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg in 1925. This waltz is a tender and somewhat melancholic work, which at times turns its gaze nostalgically to the old Vienna. The waltz praises the majesty and dignity of the old monarch, who was fully devoted to his people. It begins with a majestic, magnificent march, which soo...

Maurice Ravel was born on March 7, 1875, in the small fishing village of Ciboure in the Basque region, near the Franco-Spanish border.  His father, Pierre-Joseph, was a Frenchman of Swiss descent. Pierre-Joseph, a distinguished engineer, met and fell in love with his future wife, a young and beautiful Basque, Marie Delouart, at the time she worked on the Spanish railways.  A few months after Maurice's birth, the family moved from Ciboure to Paris. The parents of Maurice Ravel, Pierre-Joseph Ravel and Marie Delouart. Maurice had a happy childhood. The parents encouraged their two children - Edouard was born in 1878 - to follow their vocation. Maurice's inclination was music. He started music lessons at the age of seven.  Unlike the parents of other composers, Pierre-Joseph viewed positively the prospect of a musical career and sent Maurice to the France's most important musical college, the Conservatoire de Paris in 1889. In the same year, the Paris Exhibition brought tog...

Carl Maria von Weber composed the opera Euryanthe  during the period 1822-23 and first presented it in Vienna on October 25, 1823. The work was based on a French medieval history of 13th century.  The year Euryanthe was presented was marked by Vienna's interest in Italian operas, particularly those of Rossini . Although the initail reception was enthusiastic, the opera lasted only twenty performances, with complaints about the libretto and the length of the opera. For the failure of the play, the somewhat wordy libretto of the poet and writer Helmina von Chézy was blamed. Franz Schubert also commented that "This is not music". Nevertheless, the introduction is an excellent example of orchestral writing and remains one of the best. The Overture begins with an extremely lively and cheerful phrase. Oboe and clarinet, supported by horn and trombones, then present a theme of three emphatic notes, followed by a shorter ascending group of notes (with a stressed rhythm). Soon t...

  A page from the score of Handel's Water Music written in 1717. This work is the most popular and most beloved of all his numerous compositions. Handel's Water Music, one of the composer's most popular and beloved works, was first presented on the evening of Wednesday, July 17, 1717. An orchestra of fifty musicians sailed next to King George I and several aristocrats, as the royal yacht led a huge fleet of boats on a tour of the Thames toward Chelsea. As the royal procession passed majestically between Lambeth in the east and Chelsea in the west to return, the King was so fascinated by Handel's music that he ordered the orchestra to replay the play three times. The exhausted musicians got permission to stop at two o'clock in the morning! Suite I in F major (HWV 348) 1. Overture (Largo – Allegro)  2. Adagio e staccato  3. Allegro – Andante – Allegro da capo  4. Passepied  5. Air  6. Minuet  7. Bourrée  8. Hornpipe  9. Andante  10. Allegr...

Tchaikovsky's Overture 1812 expresses Russia's nationalist spirit for the Russians' magnificent victory over Napoleon. In 1880, when he was writing the charming Serenade for Strings, Tchaikovsky undertook to compose a "ceremonial introduction" for an exhibition of industrial art in Moscow. As a theme of his introduction he chose Napoleon's Russia Campaign, which ended with the great victory of the Russian Army. At first the composer intended the introduction to be for outdoor performance and felt that it should be "very loud and noisy". Since then the introduction has become his most famous and most popular concert work. The "1812 Overture" is in fact an introduction to a concerto, in other words is a stand-alone work of orchestral music and not an introduction to opera or a more extensive work. The play describes the invasion of Russia by Napoleon's troops in 1812 and their retreat and defeat in the winter of the same year. Despite ...

These two works for solo piano were written between 1888 and 1891, when Claude Debussy lived in the colourful Parisian suburb of Montmartre. The exuberant existence of young artists, writers and musicians produced an intense atmosphere, which Debussy glorified by reproducing its unmistakable feeling in his music. These two pianist works, in E Major and G Major, Debussy was inspired by the decorative style of Islamic art. These are early compositions and as in the case of "Clair de Lune" they are not typical of the composer's mature style. At the same time they are perfect metaphors in the music of the spiral decorations of Islamic art. I. Arabesque No. 1 in E Major - Andantino con moto II. Arabesque No. 2 in G Major - Allegretto scherzando

In his time the German composer Georg Philipp Telemann was more popular even than his co-local and contemporary Johann Sebastian Bach. In fact, he was offered the position of Kantor in the church of St. Thomas of Leipzig and only his refusal - he bid Hamburg to keep him close - resulted in Bach's recruitment. Baroque music discovered in Telemann a genuine, inspiring, unbound and accomplished composer. His ability to co-talk creatively with any kind of musical expression was truly enviable. Cosmic and religious, instrumental and vocal music had no secrets for him. Testimony undeniable are his works, the ones that were saved. They provoke immediate admiration both with the variety of their style and with their quantity. He composed a thousand and seven hundred or so Cantatas, numerous operas - forty only for the Hamburg Opera - and a host of others extremely prolific and pioneered in the effort to detox the composers from the royal courtyards and the patrons. Telemann's music wa...