Category Archives: in English

There is a visual impression or a series of them behind many of Saariaho’s works. “Six Japanese Gardens is a collection of impressions of the gardens I saw in Kyoto during my stay in Japan in the summer of 1993 … Continue reading →

Composed: 1907 Length: c. 30 minutes Orchestration: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings If Sibelius’s first two symphonies may be broadly classified as belonging to ‘national romanticism,’ the Third … Continue reading →

Graal théâtre is a concerto for violin and orchestra, of which there are two versions. The BBC and a Dutch radio station co-commissioned the first version, and Saariaho wrote it for Guidon Kremer, who premiered it with the BBC Symphony … Continue reading →

The name of this piece refers to a series of ten woodcuts Paul Gauguin executed after his return to Paris from Tahiti in 1893. The figures on these plates of hard wood reflect the style of Oceanic sculptures Gauguin had … Continue reading →

Composed: 1901–1902 Length: c. 43 minutes Orchestration: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, and strings In March 1900, a couple of months before the first European concert tour of the … Continue reading →

Composed: 1899–1900 Length: c. 40 minutes Orchestration: 2 flutes (both = piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, tuba, timpani, percussion (bass drum, cymbals, triangle), harp, and strings Actually, Sibelius’s first symphony is Kullervo, … Continue reading →

Esa‑Pekka Salonen’s music may be roughly divided into three periods. When studying composition with Rautavaara at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki in the late 1970s he wrote smoothly neo‑Romantic chamber music with expressive melodic phrases and tonal harmony, such as … Continue reading →

The best-known modern variation on the Bluebeard theme based on an ancient legend is no doubt Chaplin’s film Monsieur Verdoux (1947). Monsieur Verdoux is a bank clerk who loses his job during the great depression of the 1930s. He, therefore, … Continue reading →

Bartók’s six string quartets constitute one of the greatest cycles in the genre in the history of music. In terms of volume, he falls far short of the Viennese Classics Haydn with 80 quartets, Mozart with 26 and Beethoven with … Continue reading →

In his Fourth String Quartet, written between July and September, 1928, Bartók implemented his “bridge form” for the first time. The order of the movements is strictly symmetrical. The slow movement, which is the core of the work, is flanked … Continue reading →