Orchestra

Busch, Adolf
Symphony in E minor op. 39 for large orchestra

(b. Siegen, August 8, 1891 – d. Guilford, Vermont, USA, June 9, 1952)

 … Adolf Busch was born in Siegen in 1891, the second of seven surviving children of a carpenter who, through much practice, had become a violin maker, and the daughter of a locksmith who ran her own handicrafts shop. Adolf received his first violin lessons from his father at the age of two and a half, he performed in public for the first time at the age of four, and the “child prodigy” label was not long in coming. From 1902 to 1909 he studied at the Cologne Conservatory with Willy Hess, Bram Eldering and Fritz Steinbach. Adolf’s brother, the conductor Fritz Busch, describes his brother’s composition lessons with Steinbach as “rarely given[…] but all the more excellent for it[…]”. Large and small forms were explored, and Steinbach also provided his pupil with poems on song composition. On 26 January 1909, Adolf Busch met Max Reger and he played the composer’s Violin Concerto in A major by heart, accompanied by his brother Fritz. Reger was enthusiastic about his playing, and the two subsequently gave many concerts together. Busch’s compositional development owes much to their friendship, even though other composers, such as Ferruccio Busoni, later left their mark on Busch’s oeuvre, which was nevertheless quite unique….

Bach, Johann Christian
NEW SPECIAL EDITION(!)The Periodical Overture in 8 Parts No. 1, Gli uccellatori (edited by Barnaby Priest and Alyson McLamore / first print)

Published by Robert Bremner at the Harp and Hautboy, opposite Somerset-House, in the Strand
Issued: 30 June 1763; price 2 shillings
Source: Henry Watson Music Library – Courtesy of Manchester Libraries,
Information and Archives, Manchester City Council: BR580Ba75
Editors: Barnaby Priest & Alyson McLamore

Introduction, Historical Background and catalogue > HERE

COMMENTARY

Robert Bremner (c.1713–1789) launched his new series of Periodical Overtures by featuring the work of a rising star in London: the twenty-seven-year old Johann Christian Bach (1735–1782). Bach’s career took a circuitous path before he met the Scottish publisher. The youngest son of the great Lutheran musician Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Christian had been only fifteen when his father died in 1750, so he moved from Leipzig to Berlin to live with his half-brother Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, who oversaw Johann Christian’s music instruction for the next five years. Before he had turned twenty, however, Johann Christian took a step that no member of the Bach family had ever taken: he went to Italy. There, he was surrounded by opera—a genre never produced by either his father or his half-brother. In fact, Charles Burney later published his regret that neither of the older Bachs “had been fortunately employed to compose for the stage and the public of great capitals” since he believed that that would have led them to write “in a style more popular, and generally intelligible and pleasing.” …

Saint-Saëns, Camille
Africa, Fantaisie pour piano avec accompagnement d’Orchestre, Op. 89

(b. Paris, 9 October 1835 – d. Algiers, 16 December 1921)

(Images in the online preface are not available!)

Composed: started 1889 Cadiz, completed March-April 1891 Cairo, orchestrated June 1891 in Algiers
Premiere: 25 October 1891, conducted by Édouard Colonne (1838-1910) at the Théâtre du Châtelet Concerts Colonne
Dedicated to: Mademoiselle Marie-Aimée Roger-Miclos (1860-1951), premiering pianist.
First Publication: October 1891, Two pianos: Durand & Schoenewerk, Plate D. & S. 4394
November 1891 Orchestral parts: Durand & Cie., Plate D. & F. 4476
December 1891 Solo piano: Plate D. & S. 4440
February 1892 Orchestral score: Durand & Cie., Plate D. & F. 4476
Orchestration: 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns (F), 2 cornets (B-flat), 3 trombones, timpani, triangle, cymbals, strings

The Composer
Camille Saint-Saëns was a short, witty, sarcastic French composer remembered mainly for his opera Samson and Delilah and the orchestral showpieces Danse macabre and Carnival of the Animals. One of the most prolific French romantic composers, he published nearly 300 compositions in his eighty-six years, describing himself as “an apple tree producing apples”. He composed the first film score in 1908. …

Opera

Weill, Kurt
Der Protagonist Op. 15 (1925) (complete opera score in one act with German libretto by Georg Kaiser)

(b. Dessau, 2 March 1900 – d. New York, 3 April 1950)

Preface
“Only when I felt that my music contained the tension of scenic processes did I turn to the stage.” With these words, Kurt Weill explains in his essay and memorandum Bekenntnis zur Oper (1926, Blätter der Staatsoper Dresden) how and why he made the decision to devote himself to music theatre. It was precisely this inclination towards musical drama – as Heinrich Strobel states in his authoritative study Kurt Weill, 1920-27 – that characterised the Dessau composer’s lifelong work. Even the instrumental pieces, such as the String Quartet op. 8 and the Violin Concerto op. 12, which precede the theatrical attempts of the young Kurt Weill, do indeed exhibit a distinctly dramatic character.

In the Berlin of the 1920s, which was characterised by the Expressionist movement, Weill reflected on the aesthetic and sociological state of the opera genre. Wagner and his “epigones” – Engelbert Humperdinck, Hans Pfitzner and even Richard Strauss – had initiated a ground-breaking development in music theatre form. However, the aesthetic development of the avant-garde took an opposite path, “which temporarily led away from opera” (K. Weill, Die neue Oper): the path to “absolute music”, purified of any literary-narrative imaginary world. Nevertheless, Kurt Weill believed that the cross-generational reaction on programme …

Chamber Music

Hvoslef, Ketil
Quartetto per Archi nr. V (2021) (first print / score & parts)

(b. Bergen, July 19th 1939)

First performance: December 6th 2023, Gunnar Sævigsal, Bergen
Ricardo Odriozola and Terézia Mušutová, violins
Sara Evensen, viola
Johanna Saaek, cello

Ketil Hvoslef was born in Bergen on July 19th 1939. He is the youngest son of Harald Sæverud and Marie Hvoslef. He arrived at a propitious time, since his birth coincided with the completion of Siljustøl, the great mansion in the outskirts of Bergen where the Sæverud family settled and where his father lived until his passing in 1992. It also proved to be a haven during the Nazi invasion of Norway in the Second World War.
Being the son of a great composer, music was naturally very present during his upbringing. He learned to play the piano and the viola and, in his teens, he became heavily involved in Bergen’s jazz and pop music environment, becoming a member of what was, reportedly, Bergen’s first rock band. Hvoslef (who retained the Sæverud surname until his 40th birthday, when he decided to adopt that of his mother) had, however, plans to become a painter and took serious steps in that direction. It was in the Bergen Art Academy that he met the painter Inger Bergitte Flatebø (1938 – 2008), who would become his wife and adopt the Sæverud …surname.