Par SAINT-SAENS CAMILLE. Far from being an isolated work in Camille Saint-Saens’ production, Le Retour de Virginie (Virginia’s Return) belongs to a small set written at the beginning of his career in the particular context of the competition for the Prix de Rome that was established in 1803 then cancelled following the events of May 1968. It had been for more than a century and a half, the most co…

Par SAINT-SAENS CAMILLE. Far from being an isolated work in Camille Saint-Saens’ production, Le Retour de Virginie (Virginia’s Return) belongs to a small set written at the beginning of his career in the particular context of the competition for the Prix de Rome that was established in 1803 then cancelled following the events of May 1968. It had been for more than a century and a half, the most co…

Instrumentation of Schubert‘s Song Cycle with 7 New Songs after Emily Dickinson. Par STAUD JOHANNES MARIA. At the suggestion of the great Schubert interpreter Christoph Prégardien, I have orchestrated Schubert’s large-scale song cycle “Die Schöne Müllerin” [The Lovely Maid of the Mill] (1823) for a 19-piece ensemble and combined it with seven of my own songs set to poems by Emily Dickinson (1830–1…

Tito Manlio was performed for the fi rst time in Mantua as second work of the Carnival season of winter 1719. Vivaldi set the libretto of La fi da ninfa, a dramma per musica in three acts by Scipione Maffei, with a view to its use for the inauguration of the new theatre of the Accademia Filarmonica of Verona, which took place on 6 January 1732, during the Carnival season, elaborate stage sets bein…

Par CASTELNUOVO-TEDESCO MARIO. Born into a family that had lived in Florence since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895-1968) entertained only a distant relationship with the music he heard at synagogue: a Renaissance church held more appeal for the Florentine artist than the Oriental décor of his forefathers' place of worship. It was only when he discove…

for wind quintet and piano. Par SCHWEITZER BENJAMIN. Benjamin Schweitzer presents his first work for this combination. Willing to try out something new, he adds to the typical character of the wind instruments the sound of the piano. The work is made up of two movements, each movement of several parts. Complex interwoven passages are set against stringently composed sections. The composer says of …