RIMSKY-KORSAKOV: Symphonies Nos. 1 and 2

BACH, J.S.: St. John Passion

20TH CENTURY STRING MUSIC

A Mozart Evening in Vienna

MONTEVERDI: Vespers of the Blessed Virgin

Schubert's Sonata in A major, D. 664, published posthumously in 1829 as Opus 120, has been plausibly dated to 1819, the year of the Trout Quintet. In the summer of that year Schubert had accompanied Vogl on his annual excursion to his native Steyr. There his acquaintance with Sylvester Paumgartner led to the composition of the quintet, making use of Schubert's song Die Forelle (The Trout), that Paumgartner much admired. It has been suggested that the Sonata in A major, which reflects much the same mood of delight in the Styrian countryside, is to be identified with a sonata written for the pianist Josefine von Koller, whom he met on the occasion of this first visit to Steyr. The first movement, with it's song-like principal theme, breathes the air of the country, it's serenity only briefly broken in the central development. The D major andante opens with some harmonic ambiguity, implicit in the principal theme, but any passing sadness is dispelled in the final Allegro. The so-called Wanderer Fantasia, the Fantasia in C major, Opus 15, D. 760, was written in November 1822 and published the following year. It was dedicated to Emmanuel, Edler von Liebenberg de Zsettin, a well-to-do pupil of Mozart's pupil Hummel. The popular name of the Fantasia, The Wanderer, is taken from the 1816 song of that name, a setting of words by Schmidt von L�beck, the theme of which is varied in the slow movement of the Fantasia, a massive four-movement structure. The first movement of the Fantasia starts with a dactylic rhythmic figure, found so often in the music of Schubert. A subsidiary thematic element derived from this appears in the unexpected key of E major, with a further derivative in B flat, before still remoter keys are explored. The movement closes after preparing the new key of C sharp minor for the following adagio and the song-theme from which the Fantasia has taken it's name. This material is varied and developed, to be succeeded by an A flat major scherzo, again drawing on the same thematic resources. There is a trio section, while the final section, starting in A minor, finds it's way back to the original tonality of C major. In the last movement Allegro left hand octaves state the theme again, answered in fugal style by the right hand, before the entries of a third and fourth voice, leading on to a dynamic climax and a brilliant and emphatic C major conclusion.

"The Kodaly’s Haydn will now be familiar enough to many readers. It deploys a mellow, homogeneous tone and phrases with care and natural musicality. The first violin, very much primus inter pares in these early quartets, shapes the beautiful slow movements of Nos. 3 and 6 with unforced eloquence. The irrepressible, gigue-like opening movement of No. 6, with its adventurous tonal excursions (foreshadowing the similar opening movement in Op. 20 No. 6) , has a nice lift to the rhythms and a lively sense of give-and-take; and each of the minuets is well characterized, notably that of No. 3, with its bizarrely scored Trio (second violin and cello singing the tune two octaves apart, separated by a flowing accompaniment on the first violin and a rustic drone on the viola)."

-- Richard Wigmore, Gramophone [Awards Issue 1999]

Massenet: Werther

Rachmaninov: Symphony No. 3 - Melodie in E - Polichinelle

The first of the sonatas, in E flat major, opens with the lower melodic part announcing a theme, immediately imitated by the upper part, over a continuing bass-line. The C minor Adagio offers an upper part aria, imitated again by the lower melodic part, as the movement unfolds, a procedure followed in the final Allegro, with it's inversion of the original subject in the second half of the movement. The second sonata, in C minor, proposes initially a different texture, with the two upper parts moving together in thirds. The second movement has the two lower parts accompanying a sustained melody, before a reversal of roles. This is followed by a final movement in which the opening interval of a fourth in the upper part subject provides material for the bass accompaniment of the theme in a series of descending fourths. The third of the sonatas, in D minor, provided material for the later A minor Concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord and strings. It opens with an eight-bar theme in the upper part, accompanied in the bass, before the entry in imitation by the second melodic part, again in a form familiar from sonatas for two melodic instruments and basso continuo. There is a fine-spun slow movement in F major and are turn to the original key in a lively final movement that introduces, as it proceeds, a triplet rhythm. Bach's Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543, was probably written during the composer's time in Weimar. In common with certain other works for organ of this period, the Prelude and Fugue are closely related, the Prelude leading immediately into the Fugue, with it's climax in the concluding section. A native of Germany, Wolfgang R�bsam received his musical training in Europe from Erich Ackermann, Helmut Walcha and Marie-Claire Alain, and in the United States from Robert T. Anderson. Based now in the Chicago area, he has held a professorship at Northwestern University since 1974 and since 1981 has served as University Organist at the University of Chicago. International recognition came in 1973, when he won the Grand Prix de Chartres, Interpretation, and has I continued to grow through his recording career, with over eighty recordings, many of them winning awards. Wolfgang R�bsam performs frequently in major international festivals and concert-halls, including the Los Angeles Bach Festival, the Vienna Festwochen, the Finland Lahti International Organ Festival, London's Festival Hall and the Alice Tully Hall in New York. He gives master classes in the interpretation of early and romantic organ repertoire and in the interpreting of the keyboard music of J. S. Bach on the modern piano.

RACHMANINOV: Symphony No. 1 / Caprice Bohemien

Gluck: Orfeo ed Euridice (first Vienna version, 1762)

Haydn: Piano Sonatas Nos. 42-47

CINEMA CLASSICS, Vol. 7

Donizetti: L'Elisir D'Amore