Post by erik on Sept 9, 2023 20:43:51 GMT -5
Swiss-American composer Ernest Bloch is in this week's Classical Works Spotlight with a work that combines the ancient with the modern, and is small in scale.
Ernest Bloch: CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 1 FOR STRING ORCHESTRA & PIANO OBLIGGATO
Born in Switzerland in 1880, Ernest Bloch was one of the most important composers and music educators of the 20th century in America, having become the first music director of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1920 and having taught at least one semester each year from 1941 to his retirement in 1952 at the University of California School of Music in Berkeley. His best-known work for audiences is “Schelomo”, a Hebraic rhapsody for cello and orchestra that is essentially a cello concerto in everything but name. But while he was able to compose on a sizeable scale in the 20th century musical world formed by titans like Mahler, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Schoenberg, Bloch could also compose on smaller scales as well. One such example was his Concerto Grosso No. 1, which he composed in 1925 and which takes its inspiration from the similar concerti grossi of the Baroque era (including Handel and Vivaldi). Structured in four movements, the work, which lasts twenty-five minutes, does indeed hark back to the Baroque, but its scoring for string orchestra is also enhanced by the presence of the piano as well, making it something of a mini Piano Concerto as well. This combination of much older styles (using fugal writing in the style of J.S. Bach) and modernism put him in good stead with other composers, notably Stravinsky, who were able to engage in neo-Classical stylings even as they were revolutionizing music in highly radical ways.
Piano: SUSAN DEWITT SMITH
San Diego Chamber Orchestra/DONALD BARRA (Koch)
Included:
Quincy Porter: UKRAINIAN SUITE
Ernest Bloch: CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 2
Ernest Bloch: CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 1 FOR STRING ORCHESTRA & PIANO OBLIGGATO
Born in Switzerland in 1880, Ernest Bloch was one of the most important composers and music educators of the 20th century in America, having become the first music director of the Cleveland Institute of Music in 1920 and having taught at least one semester each year from 1941 to his retirement in 1952 at the University of California School of Music in Berkeley. His best-known work for audiences is “Schelomo”, a Hebraic rhapsody for cello and orchestra that is essentially a cello concerto in everything but name. But while he was able to compose on a sizeable scale in the 20th century musical world formed by titans like Mahler, Stravinsky, Debussy, and Schoenberg, Bloch could also compose on smaller scales as well. One such example was his Concerto Grosso No. 1, which he composed in 1925 and which takes its inspiration from the similar concerti grossi of the Baroque era (including Handel and Vivaldi). Structured in four movements, the work, which lasts twenty-five minutes, does indeed hark back to the Baroque, but its scoring for string orchestra is also enhanced by the presence of the piano as well, making it something of a mini Piano Concerto as well. This combination of much older styles (using fugal writing in the style of J.S. Bach) and modernism put him in good stead with other composers, notably Stravinsky, who were able to engage in neo-Classical stylings even as they were revolutionizing music in highly radical ways.
Piano: SUSAN DEWITT SMITH
San Diego Chamber Orchestra/DONALD BARRA (Koch)
Included:
Quincy Porter: UKRAINIAN SUITE
Ernest Bloch: CONCERTO GROSSO NO. 2