Month: September 2024

Perlman Plays Morricone: The Love Theme from “Cinema Paradiso”

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Itzhak Perlman joins the Richmond Symphony this weekend. The program includes music from Perlman’s Cinema Serenade albums, both of which feature solo violin adaptations of classic film music. The first Cinema Serenade volume, released in 1996, concludes with the love theme from the 1988 coming-of-age drama, Cinema Paradiso. The film was scored by the late Academy Award-winning Italian composer, Ennio Morricone, who worked in collaboration with his son, Andrea Morricone. It was Andrea …

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David Diamond’s Music for Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”: Atmospheric Vignettes

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The music of American composer David Diamond (1915-2005) is distinct and recognizable. Built on tonal and modal harmony and wide open voicing, often it develops through fleeting motivic fragments which combine to form a landscape as expansive and majestic as the American frontier. Although a longtime member of the faculty of the Juilliard School, Diamond was a maverick who was out of step with prevailing musical trends. In 1949, when he approached …

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Handel’s “Stille Amare”: The “Poison” Aria from “Tolomeo”

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Handel’s opera, Tolomeo, HWV 25, was first performed at the King’s Theatre in London on April 30, 1728, and featured a spectacular and renowned cast, which the composer imported from Italy. Set in 108 BC, its plot is ripe for high drama: The story of Tolomeo is set in Ancient Egypt and follows Tolomeo, the son of a deposed king, who is forced to marry Seleuce, who is already married to his …

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Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major: A Thrilling Technical Experiment

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When Franz Joseph Haydn composed his Trumpet Concerto in E-flat Major in 1796, he was at the forefront of a thrilling new technical experiment. Traditionally, the valveless natural trumpet was limited to the pitches of the overtone series. In the lower register, these pitches amounted to bugle call notes. In classical symphonies, trumpets were used sparingly to punctuate climaxes with celebratory fanfares. Only in its highest register could the natural trumpet access …

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Haydn’s “Mass in Time of War”: Martial Fanfares and Thundering Timpani

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A revolutionary current runs through Franz Joseph Haydn’s Mass in Time of War (Mass No. 10 in C Major). It approaches the liturgy with a new sense of tumultuous drama, with military fanfares ringing out in the closing movement. The rumbling artillery of its timpani rolls earned the work the nickname, Paukenmesse (“Kettledrum Mass”). In a way which foreshadows Beethoven’s Missa solemnis, the instrumental lines take on new dramatic prominence, rather than …

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Ives’ “The Gong on the Hook and Ladder” (“Firemen’s Parade on Main Street”): An Experiment in Rhythm

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Born in Danbury, Connecticut in 1874, Charles Ives conceived of a brash, previously unimaginable kind of 20th century music. He experimented with collages of sound and rhythm in brief chamber music fragments which he called “sets” or “cartoons.” One such experimental work is The Gong on the Hook and Ladder, or Firemen’s Parade on Main Street. The music originated as a section of Ives’ Pre-Second String Quartet, composed between 1904 and 1906 and …

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