Anna Clyne

Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 in C Major, “Il Distratto”: Music for the Comic Stage

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Franz Joseph Haydn’s Symphony No. 60 in C Major, Il Distratto, (“The Absent-Minded Gentleman”) has been called “the funniest piece of symphonic music ever written.” (Kenneth Woods) The six-movement Symphony was conceived originally as incidental music for a 1774 German-language adaptation of Le Distrait, a farcical comedy by the French playwright, Jean François Regnard. The play centers around the buffoonish misadventures of a man who is so absent-minded that he nearly forgets …

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Anna Clyne’s “DANCE”: A Concerto for Cello and Orchestra Inspired by Rumi

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Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance, when you’re perfectly free. – Rumi  These lines by the 13th century Persian poet, Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi, inspired DANCE, a cello concerto written in 2019 by the English composer, Anna Clyne (b. 1980). The Concerto is set in five movements, each of which corresponds to a line in the …

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Anna Clyne’s “This Midnight Hour”: A Cinematic Journey Through the Night

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This Midnight Hour, an evocative tone poem by the English composer, Anna Clyne (b. 1980), suggests the shadowy nocturnal world of film noir. Written in 2015, the single movement orchestral work unfolds as a haunting cinematic journey. Growling low strings initiate a spine-chilling “chase” down desolate alleyways. Amid the throb of an elevated heartbeat, we find ourselves alone with shadowy specters of the night. Distant, indistinguishable sounds echo across an alienating landscape. Suddenly and …

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