A CONCERT OF PAN-EUROPEAN LATE 19TH CENTURY MUSIC

COMPOSERS

FERRUCCIO BUSONI (1866-1924)

An outstanding piano virtuoso and accomplished composer, conductor, and teacher, Busoni was born in Empoli, Italy, the only child of two professional musicians - an Italian clarinetist father and a German-Italian pianist mother. A child prodigy, he made his piano debut with his parents at the age of seven, and two years later already played his own compositions in Vienna. After studying briefly in Graz with Wilhelm Mayer, he held several teaching posts. The first one was in 1888 at Helsinki, where he met his wife, Gerda Sjstrand, and began a lifelong friendship with Jean Sibelius. In 1890, he won the Anton Rubinstein Competition, and taught in Moscow; from 1891 to 1894 he had taught in the United States while touring extensively as an already renowned virtuoso pianist. In 1894 he settled in Berlin, giving a series of concerts there both as pianist and conductor. He promoted contemporary music and continued to teach at Weimar, Vienna and Basel. His piano playing and philosophy of music influenced Claudio Arrau. In 1907, he wrote his Sketch of a New Aesthetic of Music, predicting a future music that included the division of the octave into more than the traditional 12 degrees. His philosophy of absolute music stressed that "Music was born free; and to win freedom is its destiny." During WWI, Busoni lived in Bologna, where he directed the conservatory, and in Zrich, refusing to perform in any countries involved in the war. Back in Berlin in 1920, he continued giving master classes in composition and composing for the rest of his life. Several of his then students became world famous, including Kurt Weill, Edgard Varse and Stefan Wolpe. He left a few recordings of his concerts and a number of piano rolls. His compositions, including mostly piano music but also two operas (the second one, Doctor Faust was left unfinished), were largely forgotten after his death, while he was remembered as a great virtuoso and arranger of Bachs music for the piano. The interest in his work was revived in the 1980s .

CESAR FRANCK (1822-1890)

French composer, teacher and organist of Belgian origin, Franck was initially convinced by his father to have a piano virtuoso career. He started his education at the Lige and Paris conservatories but failed as a performer and instead concentrated on composition. Only later, he discovered his true interest through organist's and teachers assignments in Paris. His improvisatory skill as an organist were noticed, and led to his first major work, the outstanding Six pices (1862), but his organ professorhip at the Paris Conservatoire came almost a decade later. Since the appointment until his death in 1890, Franck actively composed, including his large-scale sacred works, such as the oratorio Les batitudes (1879), and several symphonic poems including Le chausseur maudit (1882) and Psych (1888). His most significant achievements are in the symphonic, chamber and keyboard works one of the most distinguished contributions to the field by any French musician. In these works, the Piano Quintet (1879), the Prlude, the Violin Sonata (1886), the Symphony in d Minor (1888) and the String Quartet (1889), among others, his natural emotionalism and preoccupation with counterpoint and traditional forms found their proper balance. The strongest features of his mature style, influenced by Beethoven, Liszt and Wagner, are the complex, mosaic-like phrase structures, variants of one or two motifs, his rich chromaticism, often used structurally in the 'chord pair'; and his fondness for cyclic, tripartite forms. These, in turn, inspired many of his disciples, such as Duparc, d'Indy, Chausson, Dukas, Guilmant, and others. Franck exercised extensive influence through his teaching and performances, but as a composer he remained an outsider in Paris interested mostly in opera.

RICHARD STRAUSS (1864-1949)

One of the most important composers of the 19th and 20th centuries, this musicians son and a prodigy, grew to become a musical giant , surpassing all expectations. As a conductor in Munich, Meiningen and Weimar he perfected his craft (he was regarded as one of the leading conductors of his time) and sharpened the skills which would prepare him for later positions as the artistic director at the Berlin Court Opera (1898-1918) and the Vienna State Opera (1919-1924). Although he started his long career as a composer ahead of his time - a great force in the musical Modern, he finished it behind the times as a glorious conclusion of late romanticism. His work include the symphonic poems Tod und Verklrung, Till Eulenspiegel and Also sprach Zarathustra, which brought him lasting fame before the turn of the century. From his juvenile attempts (Weihnachtslied, 1870) through his old age (Four Last Songs, 1948), Strauss proved himself as the unsurpassed master of song composition. Following the revolutionary drama Salome (text by Oscar Wilde), he started a fruitful collaboration with Hugo von Hofmannsthal. Their successful, collaborative stage works such as Elektra, DerRosenkavalier, Ariadne auf Naxos or Die Frau ohne Schatten are essential features of the operatic repertoire today. In 1933 the Nazi regime appointed Strauss, Germanys top musician, as President of the Reichsmusikkammer (Reich Chamber of Musicians). Strauss accepted but resigned by 1935; however, the financial necessity of having his works performed in Germany and family interest (his son Franz had a Jewish wife since 1924) prevented him from breaking with the Nazi regime. Strauss impressive oeuvre consists of close to 300 sketches and 86 completed works in all genres. Interestingly, he left almost no theoretical or autobiographical writings. Instead, he expressed himself through art: his grand ambitions and adversaries in the tone poem Ein Heldenleben, an occasionally tumultuous family life with his dearly loved wife Pauline (a renowned singer) in his tone poem, Symphonia Domestica (a musical reflection of the secure domestic life so valued by the composer), and the opera Intermezzo, finally, his affection for the mountains and the Alpine landscape near his home in Garmisch in his final tone poem Alpensymphonie.

EDVARD GRIEG (1843-1907)

The greatest Norwegian composer, "Chopin of the North" as Hans von Bulow called him, Grieg was born in Bergen as one of five kids of an English consul of Scottish origin and his pianist wife. At six, Grieg began piano studies with his mother, and then studied music in Leipzig (1858-1862) and Copenhagen (1863-). Increasingly interested in Scandinavian folk music, Norwegian folk culture and traditional melodies, he quickly emancipated himself from the German romantic tradition and developed his original style - rich and filled with unorthodox harmonies, style challenging for a classically conditioned ear. He established his European reputation performing in Rome in winter of 1865-1866, then settled in Christiania (Oslo), teaching and performing, and married his cousin Nina Hagerup (Their only child died in infancy). He completed his famous Piano Concerto in A minor in 1868. With a recommendation from Franz Liszt, Grieg received a state stipend to study in Italy, and spent another winter in Rome (1869-1870) performing, meeting Liszt and other European musicians, and initiating a collaboration with Norwegian writer Bjornson, which continued during the 1870's. After becoming a member of the Royal Music Society in Stockholm (1872) and receiving the state annual grant of 1600 kronen from the Norwegian Storthing (1874), he quit teaching and returned to Bergen, where he composed much of his music among the picturesque landscape of forest, mountains, and sea at the Hardanger fjord. Grieg's admiration with serenity and beauty of the Norwegian landscapes was the essential part of his music of a distinguished lyrical quality and emotional depth, which he expressed through refined melody lines and sophisticated harmonic changes. His symphonic Norwegian Dances and Norwegian Peasant Dances allude to Scandinavian folk melodies. The Peer Gynt suites and such pieces as Solvejg's Song and Ein Schwan are characterized with power for creating vivid pictures in the listener's mind -- pictures that turned suitable for many film scores. Since 1878 through the 1990s, the composer traveled with his wife, and performed in many European cities. He died in Bergen.

SIR EDWARD ELGAR (1857-1934)

One of the significant figures among late Romantic European musicians, and, arguably, the top English composer of his generation, Elgar was born in the West of England. The son of a piano-tuner and owner of a music shop, he earned his earlier living as an organist, violinist and teacher. He married in 1889 and moved to London, but his first success with the Enigma Variation came after his return to the West Country in 1899. By WWI, he was the most celebrated living British composer, with reputation solidified by a succession of large scale choral and orchestral works. He wrote relatively little after his wifes death in 1920. Elgar composed a number of oratorios and works for chorus and orchestra, including The Apostles and The Kingdom, and the cantata Caractacus. The most significant of all is The Dream of Gerontius, a remarkable study of a man on his deathbed. Sea Pictures, an anthology of songs for contralto and orchestra, written in 1899, won considerable success. The Enigma Variations, with its portraits in each variation of one of the composers friends and its unsolved musical puzzle, is one his best works; the Elegy, the Introduction and Allegro and the Serenade, all for string orchestra, offer music of the highest quality. His Pomp and Circumstance Marches however are more familiar to the public. Elgar also completed two symphonies, wrote a number of pieces for violin and piano including the three chamber works of 1918, the Violin Sonata in E minor, String Quartet in the same key and Piano Quintet in A minor. He composed relatively little for the piano, but his Salut damour (Loves Greeting) originally written for his wife, has proved popular both in its original form and in a multitude of arrangements. As an organist, he wrote a few works for the instrument; his piano music includes a number of short pieces, as well as a keyboard version of his Enigma Variations.

ANTONIN DVOŘÁK (1841-1904)

Dvořák followed Bedrich Smetana as the leading advocate of Czech musical nationalism within the classical traditions of Central Europe. Born in a Bohemian village, the son of an inn-keeper and butcher father, Dvořák, after receiving his early musical training, worked for some years as a violist. Later, with the encouragement of Brahms, he devoted his life primarily to composition. Dvořák won recognition abroad and more reluctant acceptance in Vienna. Between 1892 and 1895 he spent some time in the United States of America as director of the new National Conservatory, which resulted in works that combine American and Bohemian influence. In Europe and at home again, he was much celebrated but resisted Brahms invitations to move to Vienna. He wrote nine symphonies, of which the best known must be the Symphony No. 9, From the New World (1893), first performed in New York in the same year. His works for solo instrument and orchestra include an important Cello Concerto, a Violin Concerto and a slightly less popular Piano Concerto. The Romance for solo violin and orchestra, and Silent Woods for cello and orchestra, are still attractive additions to solo repertoire for both instruments. Other orchestral works include two sets of Slavonic Dances, arrangements of works originally designed for piano duet, and three Slavonic Rhapsodies. Overtures include My Home, In Nature's Realm, Othello, Hussite and Carnival, and many more. Dvořák left fourteen string quartets, of which the best known is the so-called American Quartet, No. 12 in F Major (1893). The best known of all the pieces Dvořák wrote for the piano must be the Humoresque in G flat major, the seventh of a set of eight, and the two sets of Slavonic Dances for piano duet. Besides that, Dvořák wrote nine operas, the first, Alfred, in 1870 and the last, Armida, completed and staged in 1903, shortly before the composers death. Rusalka is the most popular of his operas.

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FERRUCCIO BUSONI

CESAR FRANCK

RICHARD STRAUSS

EDVARD GRIEG

SIR EDWARD ELGAR

ANTONIN DVOŘÁK