Category: Program Notes

Sergei Prokofiev and Dmitri Shostakovich are the two composers who stood above the rest of those who labored during the years of the Soviet Union.  Unlike Shostakovich, however, Prokofiev enjoyed part of his career living and composing in the West, voluntarily returning to the USSR in 1936. Like his compatriot...

Claude Debussy composed the three movements of his Nocturnes for orchestra between 1897-99. The early reception of this work was not wholly enthusiastic by any means, and they continued to receive mixed reviews...

With a “keen ear for musical color and a deft ability to adapt structural elements from popular music into the symphonic idiom” (Houston Chronicle), contemporary composer Michael Abels has...

In the spring of 2020, Yale University School of Music undertook a project titled Postcards from Confinement, in which they asked faculty, students, and alumni to create musical media in honor of the victims of COVID-19....

Twentieth-century British composer Benjamin Britten (1913–1976) was a precocious child. By the age of fourteen, he had already composed more than one hundred works. Recognizing his talent, his viola teacher introduced the boy to Frank Bridge, a highly acknowledged composer of the time....

The music of Fela Sowande (1905–1987) is an excellent example of biculturality—music that blends elements of different socio-political artistic traditions. Born in Oyo, Nigeria, Sowande grew up in an upper-middle class family. This was almost forty-five years after Great Britain had declared Nigeria...

Son of a St. Mark’s Cathedral violinist, Venetian composer Antonio Vivaldi (1678–1741) was guided toward the priesthood from an early age. He entered a seminary in 1693 and...

Pianist-composer Amy Cheney Beach (1867–1944) was a remarkable woman whose life and career may have turned out very differently had she lived at a different time. Beach was born on her grandfather’s New Hampshire farm just after the American Civil War, the only child of a paper maker and his wife.

Haydn’s nicknames—“Father of the Symphony” and “Father of the String Quartet” are well earned. His sixty-plus quartets and over one hundred symphonies standardized the genres and inspired other great composers of the era such as Joseph Bologne, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, and Ludwig van Beethoven.

In 1778, the twenty-one year old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) was in Paris, performing and peddling his own music in hopes of finding employment outside his hometown of Salzburg. In the next decade, his desire for an appointment in one of the great European courts grew desperate.

A long, overdue revival of the music of Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745–1799) has taken root in recent years. Saint-Georges, a mixed-race French courtier, musician, and military man, led a multi-faceted life, highlighted by his exceptional athletic and artistic skills.

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Date of Composition: 1841 Duration: 35 minutes It is easy to forget that there was quite a bit...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Date of Composition: 1994 Duration: 8 minutes Chen Yi is just one of a noted group of composers...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Date of Composition: 1894 Duration: 10 minutes Debussy was a critical figure in the transition from 19th-century romanticism...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Date of Composition: 1908/1910 Arranged for orchestra by André CapletDuration: 17 minutes 1905 marked a special time in...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes The music of Florence Price has experienced a renaissance in recent years. Price worked hard to overcome racism...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Unless you are a horn player, the horn is not the instrument usually associated with Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart....

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes George Walker’s name is often associated with a string of firsts. Among other accomplishments, he was the first...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes In 1830, the world was Felix Mendelssohn’s for the taking. Just barely into his twenties, the young German...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes … Wistful. Nostalgic. Touching. Few pieces bring to mind as many emotion-filled adjectives as Samuel Barber’s Adagio for...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Few composers have possessed the ability to reflect emotions within their music as well as Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky....

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Oskar Morawetz was one of Canada’s most successful composers. Yet many audiences have not heard his music. Morawetz...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes Igor Stravinsky’s Symphonies of Wind Instruments displays several sides of the Russian-French-American composer’s compositional personality. Its clear form,...

Program Notes by Dr. K. Dawn Grapes American composer Joan Tower certainly fits into the category of “uncommon.” As a female composer coming of age in the...