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Latest Listeners’ Club Posts

Janáček’s Sinfonietta: A Festive Flourish June 5, 2023

The impetus for Leoš Janáček’s blazing Sinfonietta came one day in 1925 when the Moravian-born Czech composer encountered a military band performing in a park. As the story goes, Janáček was so drawn to the spirited, patriotic strains that he vowed to write his own set of military fanfares. A few months later, the perfect outlet came when J […]

Gershwin’s Lullaby: A Tender and Enduring Harmony Exercise June 2, 2023

The 21-year-old George Gershwin composed the Lullaby for String Quartet in 1919 as a harmony exercise for his teacher, Edward Kilenyi. The effortless melody was so remarkable that it circulated among Gershwin’s friends and was performed frequently at gatherings. Gershwin later reused the melody in his 1922 one-act “jazz opera,” Blue Monday, […]

Galina Vishnevskaya Sings Tchaikovsky: “Iolanta’s Aria” and “Lullaby” May 31, 2023

Composed in 1891, Iolanta, Op. 69 was Tchaikovsky’s eleventh and last completed opera. On the evening of December 18, 1892, it shared a double premiere with the ballet, The Nutcracker, at Saint Petersburg’s Mariinsky Theatre. Mahler conducted the Vienna premiere in 1900. Then, the work fell into relative obscurity. Set in one act, Iolanta i […]

Ives’ “Decoration Day”: Lingering Ghosts May 29, 2023

In his Essays Before a Sonata, first published in 1920, Charles Ives reflected on a vivid memory from his Danbury, Connecticut childhood: In the early morning of a Memorial Day, a boy is awakened by martial music—a village band is marching down the street, and as the strains of Reeves’ majestic [Second] Regiment March come nearer and nearer […]

Handel’s “Un ‘Alma Innamorata”: A Secular Cantata for the Wounded Lover May 26, 2023

Before television, internet, movies, and rock and roll, there was the secular cantata. During the late Baroque period in Italy, these dramatic vocal works were popular entertainment in wealthy, aristocratic circles. Made up of a brief sequence of recitatives and arias, the secular cantata amounted to a kind of highly condensed opera. Betwee […]

Chopin’s Mazurka in A Minor Op. 17, No 4: Evgeny Kissin May 24, 2023

Frédéric Chopin’s Mazurka in A minor, Op. 17, No. 4 inhabits the ephemeral world of dreams. Emerging out of silence, the opening bars are hazy and harmonically ambiguous. They contain a rising three-note cell which searches for the “right” note and soon spins into a melody. It is music which seems to be composing itself in realtime. Traditi […]

Wagner’s “Götterdämmerung”: Siegfried’s Rhine Journey May 22, 2023

Completed in 1874, Götterdämmerung (“Twilight of the Gods”) is the fourth and final opera in Richard Wagner’s epic Ring cycle. Wagner composed the Ring cycle, which is based on Norse mythology, over the course of 25 years. Its themes include the conflict between love and the pursuit of power, the violation of nature, self-sacrifice, annihil […]