Hugo Wolf News
Austrian composer (1860–1903)
1
- piano
- opera
- Austria-Hungary, Austrian Empire
- composer, music critic, musicologist
Last update
2024-03-19
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The Boston Musical Intelligencer
2024-03-14 15:45:32
A Long Road of Remembrance and Hope
[…] musical stereotyping, I did want to embrace what is at the heart of so much Romani music: song, from the melancholy, elegiac to the bittersweet defiantly virtuosic, and dance, even if this be a danse macabre. The core instrumental ensemble that you just mentioned is the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien. What is your relationship with them? When the strings in the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien perform as a quartet, they are known as the Hugo Wolf Quartet. Back in 2016, they commissioned and premièred my string quartet Imagined Memories at Carnegie Hall and later at Vienna’s Musikverein. That same year they formed the Alban Berg Ensemble Wien. So, would it be correct to say that the evolution from quartet to that of ensemble coincided chronologically with these two large works of yours? Yes, absolutely. My initial involvement with the quartet for Imagined Memories naturally led to a collaboration on O […]
2024-03-13 08:05:00
Little short of a revelation: Michael Spyres, Les Talens Lyriques & Christophe Rousset explore Wagner's influences with In the Shadows
[…] to Rossini and the hallmarks that would develop in his later works. Spyres manages to be plangently expressive, whilst also demonstrating his bravura chops too.The theatrical works by Carl Maria von Weber held a central place in Wagner’s early development. Here we hear Max's Act One aria, 'Durch die Wälder, durch die Auen' from Der Freischütz (1821). I have to confess, that I would have loved to hear Spyres and Les Talens Lyriques in the Wolf's Glen scene from the opera, or something from Euryanthe (1823). But here, on a rather lighter scale, Spyres is all engaging charm with moments of high drama that look forward.Auber's operas helped redefine the new style of French grand opera, whilst La Muette de Portici (1828) brought about an actual revolution too (in Belgium). We hear Masaniello's 'Spectacle affreux!…Ô Dieu! toi qui m’as destiné' from Auber's La Muette de Portici, where the voice's ability to move […]
2024-02-08 07:49:00
Diagrams & sonatas: discs of solo piano music Arvo Pärt and Ivor Gurney, neither composer well-known for writing in the genre
[…] be the work's twin orbs. All three were dedicated to the noted Estonian pedagogue Bruno Lukk, who played them in his recitals.But alongside these, in the 1950s and 1960s, Pärt also composed songs and piano pieces for children, music for plays and animated films. Four Easy Dances is a suite of four short movements, each in a strongly characterised style, still rather neo-classical but each named - Puss in Boots, Little Red Riding Hood and the Wolf, Butterflies, Dance of the Ducklings. With the short, but intense Diagramme (Diagrams) from 1964, the style has become much more modernist; striking, yet we would hesitate to identify the composer. Mommy's Kiss (1968) reverts to a more tender, lyrical style, almost sentimental, whilst Ukaru Waltz seems to have fun with a closed form, the way Shostakovich did.With Für Alina from 1976, we reach the watershed and move into the tinntinabuli style. Here we have Pärt mining the piano's sonic […]
2024-01-08 08:22:00
Classical Vauxhall: Fiachra Garvey's festival is back with everything from Fairytales and Fantasy to Classical Soul.
[…] of Classical musicians on the piano, violin, cello, and bass for Classical Soul. Things come to a conclusion on Sunday with a capella vocal ensemble Apollo 5, an ensemble that has previous given vocal workshops to schools in Vauxhall as part of Classical Vauxhall, performing everything from William Byrd to Hubert Parry to Ola Gjeilo and more.There are also family concerts when Chineke! Wind Quintet is joined by actor Adjoa Andoh for Prokofiev's Peter and the Wolf, whilst historic dance expert Mary Collins will be giving an historic dance workshop with the Vauxhall Band, taking participants back in time to the Georgian and Victorian dance halls. As well as the festival weekend, Classical Vauxhall is holding an Overture Day in partnership with the London Philharmonic Orchestra offering orchestral skills activities for free to 60 young musicians from Vauxhall and Lambeth, where participants play alongside LPO musicians. And with London Festival Opera, Classical Vauxhall is […]
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