Solo cellos are easily swamped by full orchestral sound, and the score of Elgar’s concerto therefore contains more empty space than notes; this means that every note played is essential, with no room for waste. The concerto is as delicate as chamber music. (More…)
dodo
18 May, 2009
May
18
Dances from The Three-cornered Hat The Three-cornered Hat is that rare thing in ballet, a sexy farce. A buffoon of an official (the hat is his badge of office) fancies the wife of a fanatically jealous miller. He has the miller arrested to clear the way for love, and the miller’s wife dances seductively to lead him on, tumbles him in the river, then partly undresses him to dry him — at which point the miller comes back home … (More…)
May
18
The Polovtsians were a Central Asian people who fought the Russians in the twelfth century. In 1890 Borodin wrote an opera, Prince Igor, about this war — or rather about the tragic love of a Polovtsian princess for a Russian prince. (More…)
May
13
When Tchaikovsky saw Carmen in 1875 he prophesied that it would be the best-known opera in the world. At the time he was the only person who thought so; the rest of the first- night audience was shocked and outraged. (More…)
May
13
Nineteenth-century theatre-goers liked lavish incidental music, and to provide this most theatres had pit bands, ranging from two or three players to full orchestras. Writing music for plays financed many composers‘ lives. L’Arlésienne (`The Girl from Arles’) was a tragedy by the Provençal writer Alphonse Daudet, first performed in Paris in 18 72. (More…)
May
13
Liszt was reluctant to share the stage with orchestras. When he did, he liked to steal their thunder — by, for example, following their playing of Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique with his own solo version, outdoing their effects. It was not until he retired from touring that he wrote his first concerto, in which soloist and orchestra compete on equal terms. (More…)
May
11
On some temples in India, every square centimetre of wall- surface is covered with erotic carvings: people and animals coupling in every conceivable position, a monument to the exuberance and ecstasy of sex. (More…)
May
11
Mozart’s last work begins with a solemn prayer that the spirits of the dead may rest in peace. The mood is set by basset horns (tenor clarinets, among Mozart’s favourite instruments), pleading against blaring brass chords, like foretastes of the Last Trump. (More…)
May
11
Rachmaninov wrote this piece when he was nineteen, and sold it to a publisher, outright, for a handful of roubles. He then introduced it at a piano recital, and it made a sensation. (More…)
May
8
In 1897 Rachmaninov’s first symphony failed in the concert hall, and he plunged into a four-year depression, convinced that he would never work again. He was cured by a psychiatrist who built up his confidence with hours of patient praise and persuasion, and in 1901 he premiered this concerto. It was one of his finest works, and became the best-loved concerto in the entire piano repertoire. (More…)
May
8
