After WWII, the Lyceum Club commissioned composer Nikos Skalkottas (1904-1949) to arrange traditional music for the Club’s female chorus, to orchestrate Greek folk dances for their chamber orchestra, and to compose original music for their performances. One of these original works was the Ancient Greek March, to be played for a procession in 1947 of the Clubs’ costumes from three different ‘ancient eras.’
My music
Symphony No. 16 is considered the most successful of Brian's works. He wrote the score between June and July 1960 and finished it up on 8 August. This was a change from his normal practice of leaving the summer free of composition – and he described the composition of the work as being an ‘obsession.’
Symphony No. 13 is in one movement but with three contrasting sections: Andante moderato, Agitato molto e tenebroso, and Andante nostalgico. It is one of the most dissonant of Myaskovsky’s works and, at the same time, it’s considered his most individual and characteristic works.
In 1990, the Japanese film director Akira Kurosawa made a set of short films, collectively entitled Dreams. It's the inspiration for Spanish composer Ramón Paús’ 2009 work, Piano en Arlés. Just as Van Gogh moves in the film through the Arles countryside, looking for light and shadow, so Paús’ work uses the two shade contrasts.
Castelli Romani (Roman Castles) was inspired by a trip to the region, which is about 20 km southeast of Rome. In the work, Marx paints broad pictures of the Mediterranean area. The first movement, Villa Hadriana, refers to Hadrian’s Villa, a Roman ruin in Tivoli, Italy. The original villa had been constructed around 120-130 AD as a retreat for the Roman Emperor Hadrian.
Dr Asenjo’s 1996 composition Concerto for Cello and String Orchestra starts us in a dark world for which the entry of the cello does not bring light. The string orchestra sets up a dense sound environment and, above it and through it, the cello winds long melodies.
In his work Las Cíclades arcaicas, Brouwer invokes the ancient world of the Cyclades, adding in fragments of Greek rhythms and melodies, brief reveries, and moments of dramatic silence. He also provides the opportunities for intricate filigree passages, matching the art of the ancient culture. It is the silences as much as the playing that brings out the aesthetic purity of the work.
Chronicling a day in the life of Leopold Bloom, on 16 June 1904, James Joyce’s phenomenal Ulysses is in a stream-of-conciousness style that was highly controversial at the time. In Episode 17, Leopold Bloom returns home and is questioned by his wife, Molly. This catechism of questions forms the basis of Victoria Bond’s setting of this scene in her work Leopold Bloom’s Homecoming.