Month: July 2022

Brahms’ Second Violin Sonata, Op. 100 and Five Songs, Op. 105: Musical Siblings

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Johannes Brahms spent the summer of 1886 at the idyllic lakeside town of Thun in Switzerland. The holiday was so productive that it is now remembered as Brahms’ “chamber music summer.” Works completed during this time include the Cello Sonata No. 2 in F major, Op. 99, the Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Major, Op. 100, the Piano Trio No. 3 in C minor, Op. 101, and several songs. Brahms claimed that the landscape was “so full of …

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Stravinsky’s “Symphonies of Wind Instruments”: A “Liturgical Dialogue”

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In the original Greek, the word, symphony, translates as “sounding together.” Igor Stravinsky was referring to this meaning of the word (as opposed to symphonic form) when he selected the title, Symphonies of Wind Instruments. Scored for an ensemble of 24 woodwind and brass players, the piece was composed in 1920, and was dedicated to the memory of Claude Debussy, who died two years earlier. Its 1921 premiere in London, conducted by Serge Koussevitsky, …

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Purcell’s Trio Sonata in F Major, Z 810: The “Golden” Sonata

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Henry Purcell (1659-1695), the most significant English composer of the Baroque period, is believed to have spent his entire life in Westminster (now part of London). As a youth, he was a chorister at the Chapel Royal of the monarchs. He attended Westminster School and became a copyist at Westminster Abbey. Later, Purcell became the eminent organist of the Chapel Royal, as well as Westminster Abbey. Following his death at 36, he was …

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Hanson’s “Romantic” Second Symphony: A Cinematic, Cyclic Journey

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The American composer, Howard Hanson, was born in 1896 in the small Nebraska prairie town of Wahoo. Hanson served as the director of the Eastman School of Music for 40 years, beginning in 1924. In the middle of the twentieth century, his influence was so great that he was hailed as the “Dean of American Composers and spokesman for music in America.” At a time when formalism and atonality ruled, Hanson’s warmly melodic, Neo-romanticism …

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Randall Thompson’s “Alleluia”: A Prayerful Fanfare

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The American composer Randall Thompson (1899–1984) composed his famous Alleluia over the course of five days at the beginning of July, 1940. The work for a cappella chorus was first performed on July 8th of that year for the formal opening of the Berkshire Music Center (now the Tanglewood Music Center). Serge Koussevitsky, the festival’s founder and the music director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, asked Thompson to write a celebratory “fanfare” for voices. …

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Wagner’s “Rienzi” Overture: A Glorious Remnant of Youthful Indiscretion

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In his later years, Richard Wagner dismissed his five-act opera, Rienzi, the Last of the Tribunes, as a “youthful sin.” Completed in 1840 when the composer was 27 years old, Rienzi stands in stark contrast with Wagner’s mature work. It was elaborately conceived as Grand Opera in the tradition of Meyerbeer. Wagner’s megalomaniacal intention was “to outdo all previous examples with sumptuous extravagance.” The premiere in Dresden on October 20, 1842 lasted over six hours with breaks …

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