SEASON 3 EPISODE 4
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
Good afternoon and thanks for tuning in to Little Rock Public Radio and Classical KLRE-FM, 90.5. I'm Eric Harrison, I write about arts and culture at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and I’ll be your host for the next two hours.
You're listening to ‘Major and Minor Masterpieces,’ where we will focus each week on a broad range of classical music, from chamber music to choral works to full symphonies and maybe even a touch or two of opera.
This week we’ll focus on music inspired by artwork, and specifically by paintings.
Early 20th century Italian composer Ottorino Respighi created a lot of music based on antique forms. So it’s probably no surprise that his “Trittico Botticelliano” (in English, "Botticelli Triptych," also known as “Three Botticelli Pictures”), takes as its inspiration three famous paintings by Renaissance painter Sandro Botticelli “La Primavera” (Spring), “The Adoration of the Magi” and “The Birth of Venus.”
John Nesting conducts the Orchestra Philharmonique de Liege..
(OTTORINO RESPIGHI’S “TRITTICO BOTTICELLIANO”)
John Nesting conducted the Orchestra Philharmonique de Liege in Three Botticelli Pictures by Ottorino Respighi.
Swiss painter Arnold Böcklin’s life spanned the last three quarters of the 19th century. He is probably best known for the five versions of the "Isle of the Dead" (in German, “Die Toteninsel”), depicting a white-clad figure accompanying a coffin in a boat, crossing what might be the River Styx to an island with tall cypress trees.
It was an inspiration for German composer Max Reger to write the third of his “Four Tone Poems After Arnold Böcklin,” op.128.
This performance is by the Brandenburg State Orchestra of Frankfurt, with violin soloist Klaudyna Schulze-Broniewska and conductor Ira Levin.
(MAX REGER’S “FOUR TONE POEMS AFTER ARNOLD BÖCKLIN”)
Ira Levin conducted the Brandenburg State Orchestra of Frankfurt, with violin soloist Klaudyna Schulze-Broniewska, in the“Four Tone Poems After Arnold Böcklin” by Max Reger.
Russian composer Sergei Rachmaninoff was inspired to write his own dramatic version of “Isle of the Dead” after he’d seen the black-and-white reproduction of Böcklin’s painting in Paris in 1907.
Rachmaninoff, who had a fixation for the “Dies Irae” (the “Day of Wrath”) from the Catholic Mass for the Dead and used the theme in practically all of his compositions, employs it to particularly great effect here.
Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducts the Philadelphia Orchestra in this recent recording on Deutsche Grammophon.
(SERGEI RACHMANINOFF’S “THE ISLE OF THE DEAD”)
Yannick Nezet-Seguin conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra in Sergei Rachmaninoff’s “The Isle of the Dead,” inspired by the paintings of Arnold Böcklin, on today’s edition of Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.
Franz Liszt’s fame came primarily as a pianist and a composer of complex works for the piano, but the 19th century Hungarian was also a gifted writer of orchestral works. He pioneered (and coined the term) “symphonic poem,” writing 12 of them between 1848 and 1858 (and adding a 13th in 1882). The most famous and most often played is “Les Preludes,” but the list also includes 1857’s “Hunnenschlacht,” or “Battle of the Huns,”
Liszt’s inspiration came from a tableau by muralist Wilhelm von Kaulbach, one of six Kaulbach created for the New Museum in Berlin to illustrate the history of mankind. It featured a supposedly historical battle between Christians under the banner of Theodoric, the king of the Visigoths, and the Huns under king Attila in AD 451.
For this performance, Zubin Mehta conducts the Berlin Philharmonic.
(FRANZ LISZT’S “THE ISLE OF THE DEAD”)
You’ve heard Zubin Mehta conduct the Berlin Philharmonic in Franz Liszt’s “The Battle of the Huns.”
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
—PROGRAM BREAK—
(SOUNDBITE OF WOJCIECH “BOITEG” CIESLINKSKI’S “FIRST VIOLIN”)
ERIC HARRISON, HOST:
And now for this week’s most “major” masterpiece, and probably the best known example of a classical piece inspired by art:
Modest Mussorgsky’s dear friend, the painter Victor Hartmann, died suddenly in 1873 at the untimely age of 39. An exhibition of Hartmann’s watercolors and drawings the following year led Mussorgsky to dash off, quickly and (rare for him) virtually painlessly, a suite of piano pieces representing 10 of the artist’s canvases, which he stitched together with a “promenade” theme representing the composer walking through the gallery.
Various composers have taken it upon themselves to orchestrate Mussorgsky’s suite, but the one most commonly performed, and considered the best, is the one Maurice Ravel, one of music’s great orchestrators, created in 1922. That’s the one we’ll hear today. Valery Gergiev is on the podium of the “band” he’s most closely associated with, St. Petersburg’s Mariinsky Orchestra.
(MODEST MUSSORGSKY’S “PICTURES AT AN EXHIBITION”)
Valery Gergiev conducted the Mariinsky Orchestra in Maurice Ravel’s orchestration of Modest Mussorgsky’s “Pictures at an Exhibition.”
Thanks for tuning in this week to Major and Minor Masterpieces. I've been your host, Eric Harrison, of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Our producer is Sarah Buford. And our transition and credit music is by our friend Wojciech Chiselinski.
Tune in again next week for Major and Minor Masterpieces on Little Rock Public Radio and classical KLRE-FM, 90.5.