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.
My music
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.
How can you make a simple ringtone (with all those cultural overtones) into a work of music? In his composition Ringtone, Greek composer George Kontogiorgos (b. 1945) gives us the development and a set of variations on a familiar melody.
The Overture was a hit from its first hearing. Bernstein gave its premiere with his New York Philharmonic in January 1957 (while the musical was still on Broadway). A flood of recording and arrangement followed and it remains a concert staple.
Written in 1987 as a competition piece, that Thème et Variations explores micro-form. The theme for the variations is only three bars long, but the variations that follow give it maximum expression through different realizations: expansive, expressive, flowing, meditative and violently agitated.
The Fantasia is a one-movement concerto, with many opportunities for displaying extended violin techniques such as double-stopping (even with one theme being double-stopped) and extended cadenzas.
Clementi’s Opus 9 Sonata was published in Vienna in 1783. The first movement is a beautiful Classical sonata-allegro movement. Its clarity and apparent simplicity still challenge the performer and one performer spoke of the whole of the Opus 9 sonata as having “accentuated virtuosity” as a key.
Spohr started writing Lieder when he was in his late teens and, although he had a great sensitivity towards the text, he initially lacked a competent hand at the keyboard. His collection of Six Songs, Op. 72 is his first use of true Romantic poetry.