GIL SHAHAM & PETRUSHKA
to percussion instruments ,” she said in a 2021 interview in The New York Times . “ They contain the essence of existence .”
Instrumentation : Three flutes , three clarinets ( one doubling bass clarinet ), percussion ( suspended cymbal , vibraphone , marimba ), harp , piano , and strings .
Erich Wolfgang Korngold
Born May 29 , 1897 , in Brno , Moravia ( then in the Austro-Hungarian Empire ) Died November 29 , 1957 , in Hollywood , California
CONCERTO IN D MAJOR FOR VIOLIN AND ORCHESTRA , OP . 35 [ 1945 ]
Erich Wolfgang Korngold was one of history ’ s most extraordinary prodigies . When he was nine , his father , a noted Viennese music critic , convinced Gustav Mahler to assess him . After hearing Korngold play his ( now lost ) cantata Gold at the piano , Mahler declared him to be a genius and recommended that he study composition with Alexander von Zemlinsky . In 1910 , Korngold ’ s ballet-pantomime Der Schneeman ( The Snowman ) was produced to astonished acclaim at the Vienna Court Opera . In the next few years his works were played by such esteemed figures as the pianist Artur Schnabel and the violinist Carl Flesch . Composers all over Europe gawked in awe ; Richard Strauss , Giacomo Puccini , Jean Sibelius , and many others scrambled for superlatives to describe what they heard . By the time Korngold was 20 , two of his operas had been premiered at the Munich Court Theatre and his orchestral works had been played by the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and the Vienna Philharmonic .
He continued from strength to strength during the interwar years , and in 1934 the theatrical director Max Reinhardt invited him to Hollywood to compose the soundtrack for his film adaptation of A Midsummer Night ’ s Dream . Hollywood agreed with Korngold , and Korngold , being Jewish , assuredly would not have agreed with Austria had he remained there . During this second phase of his career , Korngold created masterful symphonic scores for 20 motion pictures , including Anthony Adverse ( which brought him his first Academy Award ),
Robin Hood ( which earned him his second ), The Sea Hawk , and Kings Row .
If , listening to his Violin Concerto , you think you hear echoes of familiar film music , you ’ re right . Most of its themes are drawn from Korngold ’ s soundtrack scores : in the first movement , from Another Dawn ( 1937 ) and Juarez ( 1939 ); in the second , from Anthony Adverse ( 1936 ; the movement ’ s misterioso middle section is original to the concerto ); in the mercurial finale , from The Prince and the Pauper ( 1937 ). ( The script for Juarez , incidentally , was drawn partly from a novel by Franz Werfel , the third husband of the Violin Concerto ’ s dedicatee , Alma Mahler-Werfel .) But a concerto is more than its themes , and in reworking and developing this mostly pre-existent melodic material Korngold crafted a virtuoso showpiece that is hard not to love . It was born of a language that was in no way avant-garde in 1945 , but it prolongs lush post-Romanticism into an era when concert-hall composers could be far less concerned about charming listeners .
Instrumentation : Two flutes ( second doubling piccolo ), two oboes ( second doubling English horn ), two clarinets and bass clarinet , two bassoons ( second doubling contrabassoon ), four horns , two trumpets , trombone , timpani , percussion ( glockenspiel , xylophone , vibraphone , cymbals , chimes , tam-tam , bass drum ), harp , celesta , and strings , in addition to the solo violin .
Igor Stravinsky
Born June 5 ( old style )/ 17 ( new style ), 1882 , in Oranienbaum , now Lomosov , Russia Died April 6 , 1971 , in New York , New York
PETRUSHKA [ 1911 VERSION ], COMPLETE BALLET SCORE Igor Stravinsky ’ s breakthrough to fame arrived when he embarked on a string of collaborations with the ballet impresario Sergei Diaghilev , whose Ballets Russes , launched in Paris in 1909 , became identified with the
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