For Your Listening Pleasure

"The Montreal Symphony on Radio Canada International" Henri Bergeron i your host fr this radio broadcast of the Montreak Symphony's subscruption concert of May 27. 1986. The orchestra is guest-conducted by Gunther Herbig, and features Italian violinist Salvatore Accardo. The MSO is not renowned for a German sound, but you must admit they sound quite the part in a quintessentially German piece... Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/OSMHerbigAccardo1986Part1 [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

"Tchaikovsky - Shakespeare Trilogy" This second of teo listener guides isd edicated to what I call Tchaikovsky’s Shakespeare Trilogy, works inspired by the Bard’s plays. The most well-known of the trilogy is the overture-fantasia in B minor Romeo and Julietafter Shakespeare's tragedy (ca.1594), written by Tchaikovsky in October and November 1869, and extensively revised between July and September 1870. The final, definitive version of the score dates from August 1880. Between 1878 and 1881 Tchaikovsky sketched part of a duet scena for an opera on the subject of Romeo and Juliet, using themes from the overture-fantasia. Like it contemporary tone poem Fatum, the first version of the work is dedicated to Mily Balakirev. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/02TchaikovskyBuryaTheTempes [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

"Tchaikovsky Lost & Found" This first of two listener guides dedicated to Tchaikovsky's tone poems considers opp. 76, 77 and 78, where we can see a definite pattern in the site’s contents. It goes something like this: After the first performance the composer destroyed the full score, but after his death it was reconstructed from the surviving orchestral parts and published [posthumously]. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/04TchaikovskyFrancescaDaRimi [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

"Scheherazade" Today’s listener guide explores three works, who share a common story line – the Persian and Arabian legend of the Thousand and one nights, and in particular the Persian Queen that narrates the many stories, Scheherazade. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast124

"Tchaikovsky Waltzes" When one thinks of the waltz, two names spring to mind: the Viennese Waltz King (Johann Strauss) and Poland’s greatest composer (Frederic Chopin). However, as today’s listener guide suggests, we shouldn’t overlook Russia’s Peter Tchaikovsky. This playlist gathers several waltz movements and stand-alone waltzes from Tchaikovsky’s symphonic, stage and piano catalogues. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast275

"Wagner Overtures" De Waart studied oboe, piano and conducting at the Sweelinck Conservatory, graduating in 1962. In 1964, at the age of 23, de Waart won the Dimitri Mitropoulos Conducting Competition in New York. As part of his prize, he served for one year as assistant conductor to Leonard Bernstein at the New York Philharmonic. On his return to the Netherlands, he was appointed assistant conductor of the Concertgebouw Orchestra under Bernard Haitink.Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/02DieFeenOverture [First Time on our Podcasting Channel]

This week, the late Georg Tintner conducts a pair of works bt Mozart and Bruckner. Read our commentary on May 22 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com/, details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast339-Playlist

"Tchaikovsky Piano Concertos no. 2 and 3" According to Modest Tchaikovsky, it was his brother's original intention to dedicate the First concerto to the "colossal virtuoso force" of Nikolay Rubinstein, but the composer's feelings were wounded so deeply [by Rubinstein's criticism of the work, as we discussed last week’s post] that Tchaikovsky subsequently changed his mind… In 1880 Tchaikovsky decided to dedicate his Second Piano Concerto to Rubinstein, for his "magnificent" playing of the First Concerto. Rubinstein was to have premiered the concerto in Moscow, but died shortly before the scheduled performance. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast135

"Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto no. 1" We all know the story of the composition - and Tchaikovsky playing - the First Piano Concerto for his colleague Nikolai Rubinstein, a formidable pianist himself. Turns out Rubinstein was not impressed, but a defiant Tchaikovsky stated to him "I shall not change a single note". Some 150 years later, and after God knows how many gazillion performances, Tchaikovsky was proven right in his decision! Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast134

"Tchaikovsky - Manfred Symphony" Tchaikovsky's Manfred is a symphony in four scenes after Byron's Manfred: A Dramatic Poem (1817), composed and orchestrated between May and September 1885. The symphony was performed for the first time on 11/23 March 1886 in Moscow, at the eleventh symphony concert of the Russian Musical Society (dedicated to the memory of Nikolay Rubinstein), conducted by Max Erdmannsdörfer. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/LSOMarkevitchTchaikovskyManfred

"Rachmaninov Piano COncerto #4" Rachmaninov wrote the initial sketches of what would be his fourth concerto just prior to his exile and only returned to it in 1926 during a period of particular homesickness. The creative process was also difficult, as he made revisions even before its publication and struggled mightily with the length of the work – which had yet to be performed publicly. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast119

"Rachmaninov Piano Concerto #1" Less travelled in this collection are the first and fourth piano concertos. The First has the distinction of being Rachmaninov's "opus 1", though he had composed some other works during his conservatory years - including an abandoned attempt at a concerto. Like Prokofiev's First, this is a student work - composition students were usually advised to base their efforts on a specific model for their first exercises in new forms. In this case the model was the Grieg Piano Concerto which was a favorite work of his. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast113

"Rachmaninov Symphony #1" Though far from the composer's best work—he was but 23, and in the earliest stages of his career, at the time of its composition—the First Symphony is far from the unqualified failure suggested by its initial reception. It is, instead, a large, ambitious work that attempts to expand the bounds of the Russian symphony beyond the works of Tchaikovsky by incorporating music of the Russian Orthodox church. Because of the failure of the Symphony, Rachmaninov began to drink immoderately. By the end of 1899, he was an alcoholic whose hands shook, imperiling his keyboard career. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/Pcast115

[Project 366 Listener Guide #342] Our belated look at VE Day considers a pair of symphonies emblematic of the two World Wars. Read our fresh take on May 15 @ https://itywltmt.blogspot.com. Details @ https://archive.org/details/pcast157-Playlist (ITYWLTMT Podcast # 157 - 23 May 2014)

"The St. Petersburg School" The Russian Nationalist “St Petersburg School” is examplified by a group known in Russian as Moguchaya kuchka, which looseluy translates to "Mighty Bunch" – we also know the group under other names: the Mighty Five, The Mighty Handful or simply the Five - five prominent 19th-century Russian composers who worked together to create distinct Russian classical music. Mily Balakirev (the leader), César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov and Alexander Borodin all lived in Saint Petersburg, and collaborated from 1856 to 1870. Details at our archive page @ https://archive.org/details/pcast279