Right here’s a small choice of works celebrating August, not as an evocative month approaching Autumn, however as a dedicatee (August Bournonville), a composer’s identify (August Baeyens, Friedrich August Belcke), a supply of literary inspiration (August von Platen-Hallermünde, August Strindberg), and an arranger (August Eberhard Müller).
Hans Christian Lumbye (1810–1874) started staging live shows within the method of the Strauss household in his native Copenhagen after listening to performances by the bands of Joseph Lanner and Johann Strauss the Elder. Main his orchestra from the violin, he supplied leisure on the Tivoli Gardens, toured overseas, and collaborated with the well-known French-Danish ballet-master and choreographer August Bournonville.
August Bournonville was one of many first to recognise Lumbye’s particular expertise for writing catchy dance and ballet-music. From the start of the 1840s and all through the subsequent thirty years Lumbye composed the music for greater than 25 dances and ballet divertissements by the choreographer. So it was solely pure that Lumbye needed, in 1869, to pay musical homage to his artist buddy on the event of the ballet-master’s fortieth anniversary as a choreographer. The outcome was a galop titled Salute for August Bournonville, which has remained one in every of Lumbye’s hottest works within the style.
Salute for August Bournonville (8.556843)
Subsequent to the Belgian violist and composer August Louis Baeyens (1895–1966), whose compositional fashion usually mirrored avant-garde parts; he wrote operas, eight symphonies, six string quartets and choral music. From 1927 to 1932, because the founding director of the Antwerp Chamber Ensemble, he gave many Belgian premieres of music by Schoenberg, Berg, Milhaud, Bartók, Hindemith, Stravinsky, and several other Flemish composers.
Baeyens’ Jazz fantaisie (1926) for piano solo, his solely foray into the favored fashion, shows such avant-garde influences, with its fragmented character and imitation of the extra rhythmic and percussive qualities of jazz (and the date of composition testifies to his data of the early touring Harlem jazz bands).
Jazz fantaisie (GP855)
Nineteenth-century Europe boasted a number of trombone virtuosos, one of the vital celebrated being the German Friedrich August Belcke (1795–1874). His Fantasia Op. 58 for trombone and organ was clearly written as a car to show his personal virtuosity, with its many melodic turns, leaps and arpeggios. It’s greater than possible that this fashion of music was the starting-point for the work of John Philip Sousa’s well-known trombone soloist Arthur Pryor, who prolonged the diploma of virtuosity to even greater ranges later within the century. It’s carried out right here by Canadian trombonist Alain Trudel, one of many world’s most revered trombonists, described as “the Jascha Heifetz of the trombone” by Le monde de la musique.
Fantasia (8.553716)
For the primary of my vocal picks I’ve chosen the tune that opens Brahms’ 9 Lieder und Gesänge, Op. 32, a few of which set texts by the German poet August von Platen-Hallermünde. As defined by Ulrich Eisenlohr, the accompanist on our recording, “the work’s compositional complexity and penetrating psychological perception contribute to creating the set a excessive level of Brahms’ tune output. The dominant themes are the transience of life, and love amid tough psychological complexities. August von Platen’s gloomy poems replicate his expertise as a gay man, remoted and despairing, and pondering of dying.” Right here’s that opening tune, Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht
(How I stirred within the night time).
Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht, in der Nacht,
Und fühlte mich fürder gezogen,
Die Gassen verlieβ ich vom Wächter bewacht,
Durchwandelte sacht
In der Nacht, in der Nacht,
Das Tor mit dem gotischen Bogen.
Der Mühlbach rauschte durch felsigen Schacht,
Ich lehnte mich über die Brücke,
Tief unter mir nahm ich der Wogen in Acht,
Die wallten so sacht
In der Nacht, in der Nacht,
Doch wallte nicht eine zurücke.
Es drehte sich oben, unzählig entfacht
Melodischer Wandel der Sterne,
Mit ihnen der Mond in beruhigter Pracht,
Sie funkelten sacht
In der Nacht, in der Nacht,
Durch täuschend entlegene Ferne.
Ich blickte hinauf in der Nacht, in der Nacht,
Und blickte hinunter aufs neue;
O wehe, wie hast du die Tage verbracht,
Nun stille du sacht,
In der Nacht, in der Nacht,
Im pochenden Herzen die Reue!
Wie rafft ich mich auf in der Nacht (8.574268)
August Strindberg (1849–1912) was a prolific Swedish playwright, novelist and poet. The following tune is a setting of textual content taken from his chamber play, The Ghost Sonata. It’s by Anton Webern (1883–1945) and is the third of his 4 Songs, Op. 12 that he composed between 1915 and 1917. Webern wrote his first songs when he was sixteen, and his final appeared within the mid-Nineteen Thirties. Most likely no different style in Webern’s output outlines the composer’s speedy evolution so utterly and profoundly. Regardless of our chosen tune’s expressionistic musical language, it’s a moderately classical simplicity and readability that set the tone in Schien mir’s, als ich sah die Sonne (It appeared to me that after I noticed the solar). Right here’s a translation of the textual content:
It appears to me that after I noticed the solar,
I additionally noticed the Hidden One:
each man delights in His works;
blissful is he who does good.
When you do one thing in rage,
don’t heap spite upon your deed;
consolation the particular person you’ve wronged
and be form, for it’s going to profit you.
Solely those that have sinned reside in concern:
it’s good to reside with out guilt
Schien mir’s, als ich sah die Sonne (8.570219)
Lastly to the German keyboard participant, composer, conductor and flautist August Eberhard Müller (1767–1817). He was additionally a famous arranger. And he acquired round. Born in Hannover, his profession took him to Leipzig (the place he was advisor/editor for the publishers Breitkopf and Härtel), Magdeburg, Berlin and at last to Weimar, the place he ended his profession as courtroom Kapellmeister. He studied beneath Johann Christian Bach and was held in excessive esteem as a composer by Beethoven.
Carl Maria von Weber, a recent of Müller, composed his Piano Sonata No. 2 in 1816. Müller’s association of the 4-movement work for flute and piano was one his final undertakings; he died the next yr. We finish with the sonata’s last motion.
Piano Sonata No. 2 arr. for flute and piano (8.573766)
