Twentieth Century

György Kurtág’s “Stele”: A Musical Epitaph

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If Beethoven’s opera, Fidelio, is a story of imprisonment and heroic rescue, Hungarian composer György Kurtág (b. 1926) takes us deeper into the dungeon in his 1994 orchestral work, Stele, Op. 33. Stele is a Greek word for a decorated slab used as a tomb stone or commemorative monument. Set in three brief movements which unfold without pause, Kurtág’s Stele is a sombre musical epitaph for Hungarian composer, conductor, and teacher András Mihály (1917-1993). …

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André Previn’s “I Want Magic” from “A Streetcar Named Desire”: Renée Fleming

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I Want Magic is a key aria from the third act of André Previn’s 1995 opera, A Streetcar Named Desire.  With a libretto by Philip Littell, the work, premiered by San Francisco Opera in 1998, is based on the play of the same name by Tennessee Williams. Renée Fleming appeared in the role of Blanche Dubois, a promiscuous, aging Southern belle who escapes into a veiled fantasy world to avoid confronting the harsh realities …

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Rimsky-Korsakov’s “The Golden Cockerel”: Excerpts from a Dark Fairytale Opera

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Completed in 1907, The Golden Cockerel was the last opera of Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Based on an 1834 poem by Alexander Pushkin, its fairytale plot unfolds over three acts, bookended by a prologue and epilogue. The story involves the bumbling Tsar Dodon. “Advised by an Astrologer, Dodon uses a magical cockerel (a young male rooster) to warn of threats, but his incompetence leads to his sons’ deaths and his infatuation with the treacherous …

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Remembering Hjálmar Helgi Ragnarsson

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Icelandic composer Hjálmar Helgi Ragnarsson passed away last Friday, March 13. He was 73. Ragnarsson left behind a wide range of music including symphonic works, operas, incidental music, songs, and film scores. He was a respected music theorist, and served as president of the Federation of Icelandic Artists, and rector of the Iceland University of the Arts. Composed in 1985, Ragnarsson’s Ave Maria for a cappella mixed choir is music from a …

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Vaughan Williams’ “Rest”: A Choral Setting of Christina Rossetti

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Christina Rossetti’s sonnet, Rest, presents death as a serene eternal sleep which provides relief from earthly pain. It is part of her collection, Goblin Market and Other Poems, published in 1862. In 1902, Ralph Vaughan Williams set the poem for a cappella chorus. It unfolds in a gentle, flowing 3/4 time. At the poem’s midpoint, the word “paradise” is accompanied by a radiant turn to D major. From this climax, the music …

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Barber’s Violin Concerto: Aaron Rosand’s 1960 New York Philharmonic Debut

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“Romanticism on the violin had a rebirth last night in Carnegie Hall,” wrote New York Times critic Harold C. Schonberg in 1970, following a recital by American violinist Aaron Rosand (1927-2019). A decade earlier, in October of 1960, Rosand made his New York Philharmonic debut, performing Samuel Barber’s Violin Concerto. Leonard Bernstein was on the podium, and Barber was in attendance. Bernstein and Rosand had agreed to record the Concerto, but the …

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Barber’s “Excursions”: A Celebration of American Musical Vernacular

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Completed in 1944, Excursions, Op. 20 was Samuel Barber’s first published work for solo piano. Using traditional compositional forms such as the rondo and theme and variations, its four brief movements venture deep into American musical vernacular. Barber referred to the collection as “nothing but bagatelles.” He wrote, These are ‘Excursions’ in small classical forms into regional American idioms. Their rhythmic characteristics, as well as their source in folk material and their …

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