Conservatorium of Music
Thursday Concert Class
Thursday Concert Class
| Flute Concerto in D major K.314 ; K⁶.285d | W.A. Mozart (1756 - 1791) |
| I. Allegro Aperto | |
| Hank Clifton-Williamson, Flute | |
| Amir Farid, piano | |
| While anxiously biding his time in Mannheim, Mozart was approached by the physician and amateur musician Ferdinand Dejean to compose a set of works with prominent solo flute parts. The set was to include (the numbers vary depending on the source) three new concerti and six flute quartets (for flute, violin, viola and cello). In the end, he produced (these numbers also vary) just two concerti and three quartets. Only half of the fee was earned for this effort and Mozart’s letters from the period indicate some frustration with the project. | |
| Piano Concerto No. 3 Op. 30 | Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) |
| 1 - Allegro ma non tanto | |
| Kevin Suherman, Piano | |
| Amir Farid, piano | |
| Rachmaninoff completed his Third Piano Concerto in the summer of 1909. He gave the première with Walter Damrosch conducting the New York Symphony, on November 28th 1909, and although well received it did not supplant the popular Second Piano Concerto. “Musicians loved it,” Rachmaninoff said, “but not the audience or critics,” who found it too complicated; only in the late 1920s, thanks to the young Vladimir Horowitz, did it earn widespread acclaim. Rachmaninoff recorded it in 1939-40, with Eugene Ormandy and the Philadelphia Orchestra, but insisted that Horowitz played it better. | |
| Violin and Piano Sonata in E minor K.304 | Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756 - 1791) |
| 1st Movement, Allegro | |
| Christine Daly, Violin | |
| Lesley Yim - Piano, Christine Daly - Violin | |
| Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart is said to have written this piece while in Paris, France. It is Mozart's only work with the tonic key of E minor. The sonata's array of intense and unpredictable emotions perhaps reflects Mozart's own personal state at the time, as his mother died in the same period that this work was composed. This sonata is rich in human tragedy and ecstasy. | |
| Préludes, Book 2 | Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) |
| VI.- Général Lavine – eccentric | |
| Quetzal Rodriguez, Piano | |
| The sixth item from Debussy's second book of preludes is quite possibly the only musical portrait of a human being within the composer's oeuvre. The man in question is Edward Lavine, an American clown and comic juggler, half tramp and half warrior, billed as 'General Ed Lavine, the Man Who Has Soldiered All His Life.' Furthermore, this is one of the five pieces in which Debussy borrows the language of American dance music, specifically ragtime, to complete this musical picture and at the same time satirizing it through his own musical genius. | |