Paul Creston’s Second Symphony: A Celebration of Song and Dance

The Second Symphony of American composer, Paul Creston (1906-1985), celebrates the fundamental musical building blocks of melody and rhythm. These elements are expressed in the Symphony’s two movements, “Introduction and Song,” and “Interlude and Dance.” Through a process of thematic transformation, the theme which opens the Symphony is developed adventurously throughout. This theme first appears as a wandering shadowy single line in the low strings. The violas enter in fugal counterpoint, soon …

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Paul Creston’s Dance Overture: Celebratory Variations

The music of the American composer, Paul Creston (1906-1985), is filled with sunny harmonies, lush tonal colors, and rhythmic vitality. Creston was born in New York City to Sicilian immigrant parents. Baptized Giuseppe Guttoveggio, he changed his name, selecting “Creston” after a character he played in a high school drama. As a composer, he was entirely self-taught. Through the study of scores, he considered his teachers to be Bach, Scarlatti, Chopin, Debussy, and …

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The Louisville Orchestra: Five Historic Recordings

What ingredients are required to develop and sustain a flourishing professional orchestra? Vision, ambition, dedication to the community, and at least a modicum of “big league” thinking, to name a few. The early years of the Louisville Orchestra offer a case in point. Shortly after its founding in 1937, the ensemble’s first music director, Robert Whitney and Louisville mayor, Charles Farnsley, “conceived an adventurous plan to make the commissioning, performance, and recording of new works …

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Exploring the Sarabande Over 400 Years

No one seems to be sure, exactly, about the roots of the sarabande as a dance form. It may have originated in Mexico or some other part of Latin America. It was popular in the Spanish colonies during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The zarabanda was first mentioned in a 1593 poem, Vida y tiempo de Maricastaña, written in Panama by Fernando de Guzmán Mejía. As a dance, it was so spicy that it was considered …

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