A gifted and eclectic composer, Griffes was born in western New York in 1884 and died prematurely in 1920 at the age of 35. Although he studied with German pianists and composers, he was most influenced by early 20th-century French and Russian composers, and by...
Benjamin Franklin, one of our country’s founding fathers, was well-known as a statesman, diplomat, writer, printer, scientist and inventor – but a composer, too? Franklin’s interest in music is well-known. He printed treatises on music, played several instruments...
Copland composed Lincoln Portrait for narrator and orchestra in 1942. It was part of a series of musical portraits of great Americans commissioned by André Kostelanetz shortly after American entry into World War II. In Copland’s own words: "The composition is roughly...
http://www.broadwaybach.org/audio/HebridesOverture.mp3 The Hebrides are probably the best-known group of Scottish islands off the west coast of Scotland. They are composed of the oldest rock formations in the British Isles. Fingal's Cave on the island of Staffa is the...
While Mahler wrote most of his 4th Symphony in 1900, he had really started it 8 years earlier - and with the last movement, no less! Mahler was enchanted by “Des Knaben Wunderhorn” (the Youth’s Magic Horn), a well-known collection of German folk poems, many of which...
This is one of Bach’s best-known solo cantatas, and one of the relatively few non-religious cantatas composed by the master. It is scored for solo soprano, three solo instruments (oboe, violin, bassoon), strings and continuo. It begins with an introspective opening...
Born in 1865, Jean Sibelius grew to be considered a national hero in his native Finland. A Romantic Nationalist, Sibelius even had his picture on the $100 Mark for a time. Sibelius’s rise to fame came as Finland was fighting for independence against Lenin and the...
The itinerary says it all: Oct. 27, 1783, 9:30 a.m: Mozart (then twenty-seven years old) and his wife, Constanze, leave Salzburg, where they had been visiting Mozart's father. Heading back to their home in Vienna, they spend the first night of their journey in...
The idea for 4th Box of Maps first occurred to me while in Venice. The Basilica of San Marco is the obvious Venetian destination for a musician, and indeed it was inspiring to stand where Willaert and Gabrieli made their polychoral music over four centuries ago. I'm...
Mozart’s one-act comic opera “der Schauspieldirektor”, or The Impresario, was originally composed in 1786 as a “Singspiel” - a German type of play interspersed with various musical numbers - at the request of Emperor Joseph II for a private performance at the...