November 16, 2009. Classical Sonatas

These three sonatas were composed in the span of a quarter century. Haydn’s Sonata in E Major is the oldest; it was composed in 1776 while Haydn was comfortably employed by Nikolaus Esterházy. Mozart’s Sonata in D Major (No.18) comes from 1789; as it turned out, it was the last piano sonata he ever composed. We conclude with Beethoven’s sonata No. 13 (Quasi una fantasia). It was composed in 1800, in the middle of a very active period, when Beethoven started experimenting with other musical forms and composing quartets and symphonies for the first time.

The Haydn is played by Chu-Fang Huang, a young Chinese pianist. She studied at the Curtis and the Juillard, and is the First Prize winner of the 2005 Cleveland International Piano Competition. Michael Tsalka plays the Mozart. He was born in Israel and graduated from the Rubin Academy of Music. A prolific recitalist, he also co-founded the Marzec-Tsalka Piano Duo. The Beethoven is performed by Mauro Bertoli, who graduated from the Giuseppe Verdi Academy of Music in Milan. He maintains an active career, performing recitals and playing with orchestras in Italy and other countries. To listen to the sonatas, please click here.

November 9, 2009

As Eric Henderson writes himself, when he was 13, his teacher took him to attend a concert by the great Spanish guitarist Andres Segovia. His teacher also arranged a private meeting with Eric and the maestro. Upon hearing him play, Segovia invited Eric to come study with him in Spain. Eric became only the third person ever invited to study privately with Segovia. We'll hear Eric Henderson playing several pieces, including one of his own compositions. We'll start with the Bach-influenced Etude No. 1 by Heitor Villa-Lobos. Then we'll hear another small etude, by Fernando Sor (No. 9). Then comes Henderson's own Prelude No. 3 ("Homage"). We finish with Moreno Torroba's wonderful Sonatina. To listen, click here.

November 2, 2009. Recent uploads

Peter Schickele is best known as the creative force behind P.D.Q. Bach, "the oddest of the twenty odd children" of J.S. Bach. Schickele is also recognized as a serious composer in his own right. The Orion Ensemble recently uploaded a performance of Schickele’s Serenade for Three. Note that the third movement contains variations on a theme by P.D.Q. Bach's Oedipus Tex, "opera/oratorio in one cathartic act."

We continue with a much darker piece, Augusta Read Thomas' Angel Musings. It was commissioned by the Orion Ensemble in 1998. This composition consists of two movements, "Nightfall" and "Daybreak." To listen, please click here.

October 26, 2009

This week we’re celebrating the birthday of the great Italian composer Domenico Scarlatti, who was born on October 26, 1685. 1685 was a good year: Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frideric Handle were also born that year. Scarlatti wrote 555 sonatas, only a small part of which were published during his lifetime. Vladimir Horowitz and Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli were wonderful (and very different) interpreters. Most of Scarlatti’s sonatas were written for harpsichord. We’ll hear four of them played on the modern piano (by the Italian pianist Mauro Bertoli, the American pianist and composer Heather Schmidt, the young Chinese pianist Jie Chen, and Mauro Bertoli again), and then on fortepiano by David Schrader. To listen, please click here.

We would be amiss not to mention Niccolò Paganini, who was also born this week in 1782. Listen here as Albert Markov plays Moses, Variations on One String. Exquisite.

October 19, 2009. Choral works

This week we present a rather unusual selection of choral works. We start with an excerpt from Rachmaninov’s The Vespers: Bogoroditse Devo (Ave Maria), sung by the National Collegiate Chorale of Scotland. We continue our Russian theme with Ya Raduyus, the setting of Psalm 114 by our contemporary and Oregon native, Tim Pack. We’ll finish with the three pieces from Benjamin Britten’s Ceremony of Carols: Procession, Bulalalow, and Recession. They are sung by the delightful Brighton School Chamber Choir from Adelaide, Australia under the direction of Michael Griffin. The soprano in Balulalow is Heather Muggridge. To listen, click here.

October 12, 2009. Three Trios.

We haven’t featured a trio in a long time, so we decided to present three of them. The Flatiron Trio named themselves after the architectural landmark of their neighborhood in New York City. It’s a truly international ensemble: an Israeli (Nurit Pacht, violin), a Canadian (Jeremy Findlay, cello) and a Russian (Elena Braslavsky, piano), happily making music in New York. We’ll hear them perform Shostakovich’s Trio No. 1, written when the composer was just 17.

The Brooklyn-based Janus Trio is quite unusual: it brings together a flute (Amanda Baker), viola (Beth Meyers) and a harp (Nuiko Wadden). They like to perform modern music, so Debussy (whose Sonata for flute, viola and harp we’ll hear) is almost as far back as they’ll go.

The Lincoln Trio (Desirée Ruhstrat, violin, David Cunliffe, cello and Marta Aznavoorian, piano) is one of Chicago’s most celebrated chamber ensembles.  We’ll hear them play Astor Piazzolla’s Otoño Porteño (Autumn), from The Four Seasons of Buenos Aires. To listen, click here.