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Latest Listeners’ Club Posts

Aulis Sallinen’s “Winter Was Hard”: Ode to a Bleak Finnish Landscape March 6, 2026

Humor, stoicism, and Scandinavian winter gloom emerge in the brief song, Winter Was Hard, Op. 20 (Vintern var Hård) by Finnish composer Aulis Sallinen (b. 1935). Composed in 1969, the song became the title track of a 1988 album by the Kronos Quartet. Their version, featuring the San Francisco Girls Chorus, includes a pump organ: Here is ano […]

Arvo Pärt’s “Fratres”: Activity and Stasis March 4, 2026

Fratres, meaning “brothers” in Latin, has been described as “a mesmerizing set of variations on a six-bar theme combining frantic activity and sublime stillness.” Composed in 1977 by Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935), Fratres is set in three parts, without fixed instrumentation. With the serene timelessness of medieval organum, a chant- […]

Arvo Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten: Sound and Silence March 2, 2026

“How we live depends on our relationship with death: how we make music depends on our relationship to silence,” writes Paul Hillier in his biography of Estonian composer Arvo Pärt (b. 1935). Sound and silence meet in Pärt’s Cantus in Memory of Benjamin Britten, scored for string orchestra and a single bell, sounding on the pitch of A. Compo […]

Mozart’s Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat Major: Music Born of Friendship February 27, 2026

In his catalogue, Mozart referred to the Horn Concerto No. 4 in E-flat Major, K. 495 as “a hunting horn concerto for Leutgeb.” (“Ein Waldhorn Konzert für den Leutgeb”). Joseph Leutgeb (1732-1811) was Austria’s preeminent horn player. While employed as a court musician in Salzburg, he had known Mozart as a child. Later in Vienna, the two bec […]

Bernstein on Schumann: An Analysis of the Second Symphony February 25, 2026

Through the years, conductors have tampered with the works of Robert Schumann, occasionally doubling instruments. Schumann’s works can be taxing for the orchestra, and some commentators cite weaknesses in the orchestration. In a 1953 analysis of Schumann’s Symphony No. 2 in C Major, Op. 61, Leonard Bernstein shatters this myth. He suggests […]

Gabriella Smith’s “Maré”: yMusic February 23, 2026

“Maré” translates as “tide” in Portuguese. It is the title of a brief chamber work by American composer Gabriella Smith (b. 1991). Scored for flute, clarinet, trumpet, violin, viola, and cello, it was written in 2017 for the New York-based sextet chamber ensemble, yMusic. It is included on the group’s fourth album, Ecstatic Science. Smith e […]

Alexander Malofeev Plays Tchaikovsky: Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat Minor February 20, 2026

The opening of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor, Op. 23 breaks all the rules. Heralded by four mighty descending notes, stated three times by the horns, the majestic and expansive theme sets up the wrong key—not the home key of B-flat minor, but its relative major, D-flat. Even more strangely, the iconic theme never return […]