Mozart’s Flute Quartet No. 1 in D Major, K. 285: Music for a Mannheim Merchant

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During the winter of 1777, Mozart spent three months in Mannheim, the German city which was renowned for having one of Europe’s most elite and cutting edge orchestras. Months earlier, the 21-year-old composer had resigned from a position which he found stifling in his hometown of Salzburg. Accompanied by his mother, he set out on a job hunt that would take him to Paris. Ultimately, the trip ended in disappointment. But while …

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Philadelphia’s Wanamaker Organ: Power, Warmth, and Lyricism

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Last week, Macy’s announced that it is closing its Center City Philadelphia store in the iconic Wanamaker’s Building. Built between 1904 and 1911 during the ascendancy of Wanamaker’s department store, the magnificent Beaux-Arts structure was designed by Chicago architect Daniel Burnham. Flanked by majestic columns, and clad in polished marble, its soaring seven-story tall central atrium culminates in a Renaissance-style mosaic ceiling. For shoppers, this Grand Court functioned as a bustling indoor …

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Esa-Pekka Salonen’s L.A. Variations: A “Dionysian Hymn to the Orchestra”

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Esa-Pekka Salonen has said that composing and conducting are “two sides of the same coin.” The Finnish maestro, who has been music director of the San Francisco Symphony, the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and principal conductor of the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, follows in a long tradition of composer-conductors which includes: Mendelssohn, Weber, Wagner, Mahler, Strauss, Bernstein, and Boulez. For some, the two equally demanding roles have led to conflict, and to the …

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William Walton’s “Henry V” Film Score: Two Pieces for Strings

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Laurence Olivier’s Technicolor film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Henry V resonated powerfully with a war-weary public at the time of its release in November of 1944. Shakespeare’s 1599 history play includes the stirring St. Crispin’s Day speech, in which King Henry rallies his outnumbered troops to triumphant victory against all odds at the Battle of Agincourt. (“We few, we happy few, we band of brothers…”) The film was originally “dedicated to the Commandos and …

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Ravel’s Vocalise-Étude en forme de Habanera: A “Haunting Andalusian Cantilena”

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Maurice Ravel’s Vocalise-étude en forme de Habanera is a magically evocative technical study for mezzo-soprano voice. The dreamy, ephemeral song without words has been described as a “nostalgic and haunting Andalusian cantilena.” (Vladimir Jankélévitch) Ravel composed this music in March of 1907 during the time he was working on Rapsodie espagnole. It was commissioned by Amédée-Louis Hettich, a voice professor at the Paris Conservatory who approached numerous prominent composers, asking each to …

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Ravel’s Rapsodie Espagnole: Color, Atmosphere, and Dance

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Maurice Ravel, the quintessential French musical impressionist, was the son of a Swiss engineer-inventor father and a mother of Basque-Spanish heritage. The Basque influence can be heard throughout Ravel’s music. Nowhere is it more vibrantly on display than in Rapsodie espagnole, completed in 1908. Manuel de Falla praised the four-movement orchestral suite as “surprising one by its Spanish character, achieved through the free use of the modal rhythms and melodies and ornamental …

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Mozart’s “Don Giovanni”: Zerlina’s Tenderly Seductive Aria, “Vedrai, Carino”

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Blending comedy, melodrama, and the supernatural, Mozart’s 1787 opera, Don Giovanni, tells the story of an arrogant, promiscuous nobleman, who, before the final curtain, receives the ultimate hellish comeuppance. Don Giovanni attempts to seduce the peasant girl, Zerlina, and disarm her jealous fiancé, Masetto. At the beginning of the second act, Masetto and his friends look for Don Giovanni in order to kill him, but they are outsmarted by the cunning, disguised …

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