For Your Listening Pleasure

“Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite #2” The Suite is scored for an orchestra consisting of strings, piccolo, 3 flutes, 2 oboes, English horn, 2 clarinets (in C, A), 2 bassoons + 4 horns (in F), 3 trumpets (C, E), 3 trombones, tuba + timpani, tambourine, triangle, cymbals, bass drum + harp. The Scherzo burlesque includes parts for four accordions ad libitum, and Tchaikovsky's note at the head of this movement reads: “To receive the proper effect of this piece, accordions are very much desirable, but not essential. They should be in the key of E and with 10 keys. The performers of the first and second accordion parts should use their right hands for the 6th and 7th stops, and the performers of the third and fourth parts on the 2nd and 3rd. In both cases the left hand should be used for both large stops. The large notes relate to the sounds produced with the right hand, and the small notes to the bass chords produced by pressing with the left hand.” Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast243

“Amateur Night at Harvard” Our performers are an ecclectic assemblage of musicians and scientists - pianist Irene Chen holds degrees in biochemistry and music, and has pursued a Master’s Degree in piano performance as well as studies in German! Violist Miriam Osterfield has a Ph. D. in Biological Sciences and is on faculty at the University of Texas Southwestern. and violinist Allegra Petti is a research fellow at the McDonnell Genome Institute. Cellist Jonathan Min (who I believe graduated in dentistry) wrote the liner notes for a CD that recorded the 2004 recital for posterity. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/03RavelTrioInAIIIIV [First time on our podcasting channel]

“Tchaikovsky: Orchestral Suite #1” In August 1878 Tchaikovsky wrote to Nadezhda von Meck from Brailov: "This morning I had such an urge to write down an orchestral scherzo that I could not resist the urge, and spent two hours working on it". The idea to compile an orchestral suite occurred to him later. In a later letter to madame von Meck Tchaikovsky wrote: "In Brailov I managed to note down on paper sketches for an orchestral scherzo. It was only afterwards that the idea came into my head for a whole cycle of pieces for orchestra, which should form a Suite in the style of Lachner". Detail at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast280

“Leoncavallo: Pagliacci” Part two of the Cav/Pag double-bill, Pagliacci is an opera consisting of a prologue and two acts with libretto by the composer, recounting the tragedy of a jealous husband in a commedia dell'arte troupe. It is the only opera of Leoncavallo that is still widely staged. Detail at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/PagliaciCallas [First time on our podcasting channel]

“Mascagni: Cavalleria Rusticana” Cavalleria rusticana is an opera in one act to an Italian libretto by Giovanni Targioni-Tozzetti and Guido Menasci, adapted from a play written by Giovanni Verga based on his short story. Considered one of the classic verismo operas, it premiered on May 17, 1890 at the Teatro Costanzi in Rome. Since 1893, it has often been performed in a so-called Cav/Pag double-bill with Pagliacci by Ruggero Leoncavallo. Detail at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/01CavalleriaRusticanaPartI0 [First time on our podcasting channel]

“Tchaikovsky: Symphony No. 3” The first performance of the Third Symphony, at which the author was present, took place in Moscow in November 1875, at the first symphony concert of the Russian Musical Society, conducted by Nikolay Rubinstein. After its performance Tchaikovsky wrote to Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov: "As far as I can tell, this symphony does not have any particularly successful new ideas, but in terms of craftsmanship it is a step forward. I am most pleased with the 1st movement and with both scherzos, of which the second is difficult and was played not nearly as well as would have been possible if there had been more rehearsals. The thing is that our rehearsals last only 2 hours; it is true that there are three of them but what can you do in two hours? However, I was satisfied with the general performance." Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/06SymphonyNo3InDMajorOp29 [First time on our podcasting channel] 23 NOV

The final chapter of our ongoing survey of piano sonatas features American pianist Murray Perahia. Read our commentary on November 22 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast327-Playlist

"Bizaet: Carmen" Carmen is a French opéra comique by Georges Bizet. The libretto is by Henri Meilhac and Ludovic Halévy, based on the novella of the same title by Prosper Mérimée, first published in 1845, itself possibly influenced by the narrative poem The Gypsies (1824) by Alexander Pushkin. Mérimée had read the poem in Russian by 1840 and translated it into French in 1852. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/BizetCarmenCluytens [First time on our podcasting channel]

Description: "Mozart: Don Giovanni (Act 2)" Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music! Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/02Act1 [First time on our podcasting channel]

"Mozart: Don Giovanni (Act 1)" Don Giovanni, the infamous womanizer, makes one conquest after another until the ghost of Donna Anna's father, the Commendatore, (whom Giovanni killed) makes his appearance. He offers Giovanni one last chance to repent for his multitudinious improprieties. He will not change his ways So, he is sucked down into hell by evil spirits. High drama, hysterical comedy, magnificent music! Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/02Act1 [First time on our podcasting channel]

"Grieg: Peer Gynt" Henrik Ibsen ‘s five act play Peer Gynt is one of the most widely performed Norwegian plays. It is loosely based on a Norwegian fairy tale (Per Gynt) which tells the story of the eponymous Per Gynt, a hunter from Kvam, and his various exploits. Gynt rescues three dairy-maids from trolls and shoots the Bøyg, a gigantic, worm-shaped troll-being. The fairy tale is most famously recorded by Asbjørnsen and Moe in Norwegian Folktales. Ibsen believed that the legend of Per Gynt was rooted in fact, and his play is also tinged with characters modelled after Ibsen's own family. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/EdvardGriegMusicToPeerGyntOp. [First time on our podcasting channel]

"Beethoven: König Stephan" In the mid-1970’s, a then freelancing Michael Tilson Thomas – in the midst of a Beethoven cycle with the English Chamber Orchestra – recorded many of Beethoven’s late choral works, including the incidental music to Konig Stephan (op. 117), the brief cantata Meeresstille und gluckliche Fahrt (op. 112) and a few more works for chorus, and instrument combinbations, with the help of the London Symphony and the Ambrosian Singers. Details on our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/ConcludingTheBeethovenProject

"Due South" Today’s theme has to do with “going South”. South can be both a relative and an absolute term.. Music by Elgar, Vaughan-Williams and the only work on today’s montage emanating from a Southern composer is by Argentina’s King of the Tango. Written between 1965 and 1970, the Cuatro Estaciones Porteñas, are a set of four tango compositions written by Ástor Piazzolla, which were originally conceived and treated as different compositions rather than one suite. By giving the adjective porteño, referring to those born in Buenos Aires, the Argentine capital city, Piazzolla gives an impression of the four seasons in Buenos Aires. Note the order of the seasons doesn’t match the “Northern” order of Vivaldi’s concerti! Details on our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast284

[Project 366 Listener Guide # 59] A little play on words, as we enjoy a âsuiteâ at the movies â and orchestral suites by composers based on music they wrote for films. Music and film goes back to the days of silent films, where music played a large role in providing desired mood effects, and later in the Musicals of the 1940âs, only to name those. Composers as far back as Camille Saint-Saens provided film music, and a great number of European composers (most noteworthy here being Franz Waxman and Erich Korngold) moved to Hollywood to score great epic films of the first half of the 20th century. Read our fresh take on November 15 @ http://itywltmt.blogspot.com, details @ https://archive.org/download/Pcast020Playlist/pcast020%20Playlist.pdf (ITYWLTMT Podcast #20 - September 2, 2011)

"Stravinsky: Three Ballet Suites" Igor Stravinsky, a towering composer of the twentieth century, was closely linked to dance. His early commissions for Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes—The Firebird, Petrouchka, and The Rite of Spring—put him on the international map and propelled both ballet and music into the modern age. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast278