A LA DECOUVERTE DU CLASSIQUE

BORODIN: Symphonies Nos. 1, 2 and 3

ROMANTIC PIANO FAVOURITES, Vol. 1

Eine kleine Nachtmusik, the Serenada in G, K 525, comes from a later period of Mozart's life. In 1781 Mozart, who had returned from Mannheim and Paris to the service of the Archbishop of Salzburg, accompanied his patron on a visit to the Imperial capital, Vienna. There he finally broke with his employer and secured his dismissal from the archiepiscopal court. In Vienna there seemed every opportunity, which it seemed his patron was deliberately preventing him from seizing. The last ten years of Mozart's life were spent in Vienna, without the presence of his father to guide him and without the kind of secure patronage that he had hoped to gain at court. An imprudent marriage brought it's own difficulties, but Mozart, nevertheless, won some immediate acclaim, both in the theatre and as a performer on the fortepiano, popularity which waned, but had begun to revive at the time of his sudden death in December, 1791. Eine kleine Nachtmusik was written in August, 1787, a few months after the death of Leopold Mozart in Salzburg, while Mozart was preparing his new opera, Don Giovanni, for performance in Prague The occasion of it's composition is unknown, but the work would have been suitable for domestic performance. Originally including a first Minuet, now lost, the Serenade opens with music as lucid and cheerful as anything Mozart wrote, followed by a Romance of charm and ingenuity, a spry Minuet and a final Rondo, a conclusion to the remarkable series of Serenades and Divertimenti on which Mozart had embarked twenty years before, as a ten-year-old.

The riot that took place at the first performance, in Paris, of Stravinsky' ballet, Le Sacre du Printemps, brought a notoriety to the young composer that placed him in the vanguard of contemporary music.

DUPRE: Works for Organ, Vol. 4

PROKOFIEV: Symphony No. 1, 'Classical' / Symphony No. 5

Mozart: Piano Concertos Nos. 12, 14 and 21

Ireland, J.: Piano Works, Vol. 2 - Decorations / Sonatina

HUNGARIAN FESTIVAL

Dvorák: Slavonic Dances, Opp. 46 & 72

Rachmaninov: Preludes, Op. 23 - Cinq Morceaux de Fantaisie

The set of ten Hungarian dances opens with the famous G minor dance, followed by a D minor dance, with a central D major episode, and a third in D minor, with a lively D major middle section. The fourth dance, in F sharp minor, is of a more expressive cast, leading to a more passionate companion in the same key. The sixth of the set, in D flat major, frames a slower C sharp minor section in livelier outer sections, leading to the rhythmic seventh dance and an eighth in A minor in the rhythm of the first. A dance in E minor is succeeded by the final rapid E major that rounds of the work. The sixteen Waltzes that form Opus 39 were written in Vienna in 1864 and published two years later with a dedication to the critic Eduard Hanslick, who welcomed such an unexpected gift from a serious, North German composer, who might have been supposed incapable of such Viennese abandon. If the great symphonies of Brahms continue the tradition of Schubert, they may be imagined as a tribute to the city where the compose was now to make his home. The original version seems to be that for piano duet, a form that had an immediate popular commercial attraction and would have provided Hanslick with music to share with young ladies of his acquaintance, with whom he was accustomed to play duets. The Waltzes are in a simpler and shorter form than the slightly more complex Hungarian Dances. Idil Biret born in Ankara, Idil Biret began piano lessons at the age of three. She displayed an outstanding gift for music and graduated from the Paris Conservatoire with three first prizes when she was fifteen. She studied piano with Alfred Cortot and Wilhelm Kempff, and composition with Nadia Boulanger. Since the age of sixteen Idil Biret has performed in concerts around the world, playing with major orchestras under the direction of conductors such as Monteux, Boult, Kempe, Sargent, de Burgos, Pritchard, Groves and Mackerras. She has participated in the festivals of Montreal, Persepolis, Royan, La Rochelle, Athens, Berlin, Gstaad and Istanbul. She was also invited to perform at the 85th birthday celebration of Wilhelm Backhaus and at the 90th birthday celebration of Wilhelm Kempff. Idil Biret received the Lily Boulanger Memorial Fund Award (1954/1964), the Harriet Cohen/Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal (1959) and the Polish Artistic Merit Award (1974) and was named Chevalier de l'Ordre du M�rite in 1976.

The tetralogy of The Ring, based on a conflation of Teutonic and Scandinavian legends, was originally conceived while Wagner was enjoying his first real success as conductor at the opera in Dresden, where Rienzi, The Flying Dutchman and Tannh�user were first performed. In 1848, with revolution in the air, Wagner began work on the poem concerning the death of the hero Siegfried, a text that was to serve as the basis for the fourth opera in the cycle, G�tterd�mmerung. The Flying Dutchman has it's literary source in the seventh chapter of Heine's Aus den Memoiren des Herren von Schnabelewopski, used by at least one earlier composer to provide the libretto of an opera. The story of the phantom ship and it's haunted master appealed even more to Wagner after his own experiences at sea, when he was caught in a storm, sailing from the Baltic port of Pillau to England, to take refuge from his continental creditors in 1839. Sheltering in a Norwegian fjord, he was reminded of Heine's story, resulting in the composition of the libretto and music of the new opera, completed in Paris in 1841. The work was first staged at Dresden in 1843, leading to his appointment as conductor at the opera-house there. The Overture to The Flying Dutchman, with it's story of the legendary haunted Dutchman, fated to sail the seas in his ghostly ship until redeemed by true love, sets the scene of what the composer described as a storm-swept ballad. Leit-rnotifs, themes or fragments of themes, appear and re-appear, dominated by the horn call associated with the Dutchman and the rushing strings of the sea and wind. Another theme that appears in the Overture is associated with Senta, the girl who loves the Dutchman and dies for him, as he sails away in apparent disappointment at what he believes to be her betrayal. Her sacrifice brings him final redemption. The Prelude to Tannh�user includes a number of themes and motifs that have later importance in the score. The sound of the Pilgrims' Chorus is heard and a motif of repentance, contrasted with the Venusberg music and the Hymn to Venus. The Dresden version of the overture ended with a return to the Pilgrims' Chorus, while for Paris Wagner led straight into the Bacchanal, a pagan celebration of love. This is the Venusberg music of the first act. The entrance of the nobility in the second act is accompanied by a festal march, followed by the entrance of the contestants in the song contest on the subject of love. The introduction to the third act gives a musical account of Tannh�user's pilgrimage to Rome, in search of absolution. The Prelude to Act I represents the mystical appearance of the Holy Grail, growing in radiance as it descends to men, and disappearing again, as the overture comes to an end, after celebrating the triumph of Lohengrin's divine mission. The third act is introduced by music for the wedding celebration of Elsa and her mysterious knight and champion.

RACHMANINOV: Etudes-Tableaux, Opp. 33 and 39