Percy Grainger’s “Lincolnshire Posy”: Portraits from the English Countryside

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Lincolnshire Posy, a folk song suite for band by Australian-born composer Percy Grainger (1882-1961), reveals ancient sounds from the English countryside. In 1905, Grainger, who adapted England as his homeland, traveled to remote villages with pencil, notebook, and phonograph in hand. His efforts to preserve the raw, exotic sounds of the isolated countryside mirrored the work of other composers at the time, including Ralph Vaughan Williams (in England) and Zoltán Kodály and …

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Korngold’s “Die tote Stadt” Finale: Torsten Kerl

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Erich Wolfgang Korngold’s 1920 opera, Die tote Stadt (“The Dead City”) is “a psychological drama about grief, obsession, and acceptance.” (English National Opera) The opera’s synopsis is nearly identical to the plot of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1958 film, Vertigo. Haunted by the memory of his late wife, Paul obsessively pursues a dancer who closely resembles her. Amid Paul’s psychological descent, reality blurs with hallucination. He believes that he has strangled the dancer, Marietta, with a lock …

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Mozart’s “Don Giovanni” Overture: Tragedy and Comedy

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As the story goes, Mozart wrote the Overture to Don Giovanni the night before the opera’s Prague premiere on October 29, 1787. “Don’t worry, it’s all up here,” the composer insisted, pointing to his head. Mozart’s wife, Constanze, provided punch and kept him company while he worked through the night. The manuscript was finished at 7:00 AM, and was rushed to copyists. With the ink barely dry, the musicians of the orchestra reportedly …

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Britten’s Four Sea Interludes from “Peter Grimes”: Atmospheric Portraits

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Set in a small English coastal village, Benjamin Britten’s 1945 opera, Peter Grimes, tells the dark story of an alienated individual who falls victim to mob rule. This human struggle, with its focus on morality and punishment, plays out against the backdrop of the sea, a vast eternal presence. Throughout the opera, the action is interrupted by four orchestral interludes. Howard Posner describes them as scene changes by a master of the …

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Remembering Gabrielle Wunsch

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Violinist Gabrielle Wunsch passed away on July 20 following a battle with cancer. Wunsch was equally at home on period and modern violins. She was in demand as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America and Europe. For 16 summers, she performed at the Carmel Bach Festival. She was a member of the Fresno Philharmonic, and performed with the Marin, Oakland, Sacramento, and Santa Rosa Symphonies. As a Baroque violinist, she …

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Ligeti’s Trio for Horn, Violin and Piano: Hommage à Brahms

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Hungarian composer György Ligeti (1923-2006) described his Trio for Horn, Violin, and Piano as an Hommage à Brahms.  It was Brahms who, with his own 1865 Horn Trio, pioneered this unique combination of instruments. Brahms was a composer who built on tradition. Composed in 1982, a year before the 150th anniversary celebrations of Brahms’ birth, Ligeti’s Trio similarly embraces a synthesis of old and new. For the composer, it marked a stylistic turning …

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Andy Akiho’s Timpani Concerto: Leonardo Soto, Juraj Valčuha and the Houston Symphony 

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In March, the Houston Symphony premiered an exiting new Timpani Concerto by American composer Andy Akiho (b. 1979). The performance, led by Music Director Juraj Valčuha, featured the Orchestra’s Principal Timpanist, Leonardo Soto. The Concerto was co-commissioned by the Houston Symphony, the Minnesota Orchestra, and the Brevard Music Festival. Written in collaboration with Soto and the Houston Symphony, “the piece reimagines the timpani as a melodic soloist, featuring prepared drumheads, an inverted …

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