Gerard Schwarz - Appalachian Spring / Symphonic Ode / Sym No. 3 - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

Album Tracks 1. I. Babi Yar Adagio - Allegretto - Adagio 2. II. Humour Allegretto 3. III. in the Store Adagio 4. IV. Fears Largo 5. V. a Career Allegretto

Sergey Dyagilev commissioned Ravel to write music for the ballet Daphnis et Chloe with choreography by Michel Fokine Daphnis was danced by Nijinsky. This 'choreographic symphony', in Ravel's words, is a pastoral romance that drew from the composer a succession of beguiling scenes paying tribute as much to the France of the late eighteenth century as to any Greek setting. The score is masterly, ranging from the luminous to a Bacchanale, in a musical fresco of unrivalled beauty. Alan Hovhaness's Meditation on Orpheus evokes the mystery and charged energy of ancient Greece. Album Tracks 1. Daphnis Et Chloé By Maurice Ravel Orchestra/Ensemble Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony Chorus 2. Meditation on Orpheus, Op. 155 By Alan Hovhaness Orchestra/Ensemble Seattle Symphony Orchestra

Diamond dedicated his Symphony No. 8 to his friend and mentor, composer Aaron Copland on the occasion of his sixtieth birthday. The work was completed in November 1960 and received it's première with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic on 27th October, 1961. While essentially tonal in harmonic language, Diamond incorporated highly chromatic elements and even a twelve-note tone row, not unlike what the Symphony's dedicatee was doing during this same period in his Connotations, though Diamond's work is far less aggressively dissonant in overall sound. The composer provided these notes for the première performance I. Moderato-Adagio-Allegro vivo. The basic row is proclaimed in the very opening bars of the introduction; it is in two halves. The first, a forceful rhythmic theme of five notes (4/4), is thundered out by the orchestra tutti. The second, a more lyric theme of seven notes (3/4), is sung softly by a single clarinet. Thematically, the second phrase is destined to be the more important; in fact, the row is immediately rearranged and presented by a solo horn, which starts with this second phrase in an even more lyric version, and concludes with a lyric transformation of the thundering five-note opening. The fast body of the movement, a free sonata-allegro structure, starts with a heavily syncopated version of the row as presented by the French horn. This is the principal theme; a contrasting second theme is presented at a more relaxed tempo by a solo clarinet, ben cantando, over a soft counterpart of strings. Both themes are developed, and return in very nearly their original form during the course of this long but highly concentrated movement. The conclusion is a stunning climax compounded of the essence of both themes.II. Theme (Adagio), Variations and Double Fugue. After a two-measure introduction, which turns into a sequential accompaniment, the fi