Twentieth Century

Nielsen’s Wind Quintet: A Cast of Instrumental Characters

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Danish composer Carl Nielsen’s Wind Quintet, Op. 43 unfolds as a musical conversation among a cast of instrumental characters. Composed in 1922 immediately following the Fifth Symphony, the Quintet is scored for flute, oboe (English horn), clarinet, bassoon, and horn. Nielsen was inspired to write the work after a brief telephone conversation with a fellow musician in which he heard, in the background, members of the Copenhagen Wind Quintet rehearsing Mozart’s Sinfonia …

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Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D Minor: Climbing Everest

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Sergei Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 3 in D minor, Op. 30 has been called “the Everest of piano concertos.” Rachmaninov composed it during the summer of 1909 at Ivanovka, his estate in the steppes of southern Russia, before embarking on his lucrative first American concert tour. Without time to properly learn the solo part, the composer practiced on a “silent keyboard” during the trans-Atlantic voyage. He performed it, first with Walter Damrosch and …

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Karel Husa’s Fantasies for Orchestra: Exploring Color and Atmosphere

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Czech-born composer Karel Husa (1921-2016) emigrated to the United States in 1954 and became an American citizen a few years later. Settling in Ithaca, New York, Husa was professor of composition at Cornell University from 1954 until 1992, and concurrently was a lecturer at Ithaca College from 1967 until 1986. His students included Steven Stucky and Christopher Rouse. His Music for Prague, 1968, a programmatic work originally scored for band, was written in …

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Philip Glass’ Étude No. 6: Yuja Wang

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With his twenty Études for solo piano, written between 1992 and 2012, Philip Glass follows in the footsteps of composers such as Chopin, Liszt, Debussy, Rachmaninov, and Ligeti. Glass wrote the first book of Études as an exploration of “tempi, textures, and piano techniques,” adding “At the same time, it was meant to serve as a pedagogical tool by which I would improve my piano playing.” Étude No. 6 was commissioned in 1994 by WNYC …

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David Oistrakh Plays Debussy: “The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”

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La fille aux cheveux de lin (“The Girl with the Flaxen Hair”) is the eighth piece in Book I of Claude Debussy’s solo piano Préludes, written around 1910. The title was inspired by an 1852 poem by Leconte de Lisle. We explored this dreamy, ephemeral piece in a previous post. David Oistrakh performed this transcription for violin and piano as an encore during a 1972 performance at the Great Hall of the Moscow Conservatory. He is …

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Fauré’s Piano Trio in D Minor: A Revelatory Farewell

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The Piano Trio in D minor, Op. 120 is the revelatory penultimate work of Gabriel Fauré. Fauré composed it amid declining health, shortly after his 1920 retirement as director of the Paris Conservatory. Completely deaf and nearly blind, the composer wrote in a poignant letter to his son, “and so one says goodbye, little by little.” The Piano Trio is a musical goodbye. Filled with tender nostalgia and childlike innocence, it inhabits …

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Paul Dukas’ Fanfare from “La Péri”: Prelude to a Mythical Ballet

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Paul Dukas’ 1912 ballet in one act, La Péri, is based on a Persian folktale. Iskender, an aged king, steals the magic Flower of Immortality from the hands of the sleeping Péri, a beautiful winged fairylike creature. Immediately, Iskender is filled with the vitality of youth, and consumed with earthly material desires. He falls in love with Péri. Performing a dance which brings her gradually closer, Péri is able to take back …

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