Klassische Instrumentalwerke für Orchester

Kuolema ("Death" in Finnish) is a play by Arvid Järnefelt. Jean Sibelius (1865-1957) happened to be Järnefelt's brother-in-law, and he composed incidental music to the play under the same title (Kuole...

EUGENE ONEGIN, based on a verse-novel by Alexander Pushkin, is Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky's (1840-1893) best-known opera. The story depicts the life of the titular Onegin, a Russian dandy who does not...

The Ride of the Valkyries refers to the beginning of act 3 of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas constituting Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Der Ring des Nibelungen. As a separate piece, the "Ri...

Der deutsche Komponist Moritz Moszkowski (1854-1925) ist heute weniger bekannt, war aber zu Lebzeiten ein beliebter und angesehener Komponist. Sein bekanntestes Werk sind die Spanischen Tänze op. 12,...

EIN' FESTE BURG IST UNSER GOTT ('A Mighty Fortress Is Our God') is among the best known hymns written by reformer Martin Luther, and has been used by many composers, including by J.S. Bach, in various...

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote Four Lieder (Four Songs), Op. 27 for voice and piano originally in 1894, and they are among his greatest songs, when taken as a set. While the text came from a trio o...

Richard Strauss (1864-1949) wrote Four Lieder (Four Songs), Op. 27 for voice and piano originally in 1894, and they are among his greatest songs, when taken as a set. While the text came from a trio o...

Premiering on May 22, 1813, at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice, L'italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was a success, with subsequent performances in Vi...

Manon Lescaut, the third opera and first notable success of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), took shape between 1889 and 1892. Five different writers worked on its libretto. The Teatro Regio in Turin saw...

Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov's (1844-1908) four-act opera-ballet Mlada was originally conceived as a collaborative project with music provided by five composers: César Cui, Modest Mussorgsky, Nicolai Rimsk...

Die BAUERN-POLKA (POLKA FRANÇAISE) op. 276 von Johann Strauss II (1825-1899) enthielt als einziges Werk eine Gesangsstimme für Chor, die vom ersten Publikum schnell aufgenommen wurde. Die Uraufführung...

Songs and Dances of Death (Pesni i plyaski smerti), composed in the mid-1870s, is widely considered the finest song cycle by Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881). The composer selected four poems penned by h...

Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impressario) is a comic singspiel written by W.A. Mozart (1756-1791) as "a parody on the vanity of singers," who argue over status and pay. Described by Mozart as "comedy w...

LA VIE PARISIENNE: OVERTURE ON THEMES BY OFFENBACH wurde von dem in Ungarn geborenen Dirigenten und Komponisten Antal Dorati (1906-1988) zusammengestellt und arrangiert und gehört zu den reizvollsten...

The Ride of the Valkyries refers to the beginning of act 3 of Die Walküre, the second of the four operas constituting Richard Wagner's (1813-1883) Der Ring des Nibelungen. As a separate piece, the "Ri...

Written as a tribute to the soft-shoe style of dancing common in vaudeville acts of the early 20th century, Leroy Anderson’s "Sandpaper Ballet" was not intended to be an actual ballet, though it certa...

Ludwig Minkus (1826-1917) war ein jüdisch-österreichischer Komponist von Ballettmusik, der die meiste Zeit seiner Karriere als offizieller Komponist von Ballettmusik für die kaiserlichen Theater in St...

Like most of Leroy Anderson's efforts, "Belle of the Ball" is light, effervescent, and devoid of conflict or disharmony. Anderson looked upon the piece as a modern-day American revival -- or revitaliz...

Sergei Prokofjew (1891-1953) began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera, The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the sum...

Pacific 231 ist ein Orchesterstück von Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), das die Gefühle des Komponisten beim Anblick eines fahrenden Zuges hervorrufen soll. Der Titel des Stücks bezieht sich auf eine best...

ESCALES (Ports of Call) von Jacques Ibert (1890-1962) ist eine Orchestersuite, die an seine Reisen in den Flitterwochen erinnert. Die drei Sätze sind Rom-Palermo, das mit Tarantella-Rhythmen Süditalie...

Part of the British folk revival of the early 20th century, Gustav Holst's (1874-1934) Somerset Rhapsody consists of his interpretations of three English folk tunes from the Somerset region: "The Shee...

Les contes d'Hoffmann (The Tales of Hoffmann) was written betweem 1876 and 1880 and is the final work composed by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880), who died four months before the premiere, a fear that O...

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958) set four poems from George Herbert's (1593-1633) collection The Temple: Sacred Poems in 1911 to music for solo baritone in a work titled Five Mystical Songs. The sol...

Obwohl Anton Bruckner schon so manches an Kompositionen aufzuweisen hatte - darunter das Requiem (1849), das Magnificat (1852) und die Missa solemnis (1854) - ging er noch einmal in die Schule und wur...