IMSLP Forums

Sorry, Notnd, for being too coy. The BSO is the Boston Symphony Orchestra (neither little nor local, in the limiting sense).

A quick continuation of Underrated: Glazunov's Op. 72, Theme and Variatios for piano (from 1900) is as Russian as he or anyone else gets; as Pushkin might say, it "reeks of Russia" (Rusyu pachnet). The irregularity of the theme is probably because it is a folksong (one I don't know, sadly)...

Very good suggestions by allegroamabile, if you have a (very good) clarinetist, though I think he's a little hard on Mozart. It is an early work. I forgot to mention 5 Sacred Trees by John Williams, originally for Bassoon and Orchestra, Arr. for b and Piano. Not easy, not at all in his Star Wars sty...

Hindemith Sonata (Difficult piano part), Koechlin Op. 34 (3 pieces--short but lovely- very spare piano part) Arrangement of Rachmaninov Vocalise (Op.34 no.14-available here as a cello transcription, but commercially available for bassoon) Gounod, Marche Funebre d'une Marionnette, available here as p...

I could argue that in order to be underrated, a composer must be rated. Otherwise a more accurate description would be neglected, or undiscovered, or just plain forgotten. But the word is unimportant; I think one of the purposes of this site is for musicians and music lovers to pool their knowledge ...

For horn players (and pianists) The Sonata for Horn and Piano by Bernhard Heiden, written about 1940. Available from G. Schirmer. A delightful work , tuneful and rhythmically interesting. I have the piano but not the horn part, and when I suggested it to my young hornist friend--the one who went to ...

Thank you! I didn't recognize either one. My bad.

One more comment on a comment, which I forgot to do earlier because I am an O.F. Yagan Kiely mentioned Glenn Gould's statement that Mozart "died too old". My purely personal belief is that Gould said this just to be annoying. On the other hand, I have heard (once--that was enough) his reco...

One last musical coincidence: Listen to the Israeli national anthem, Hatikvah, and then to the main theme of The Moldau (Vltava) by Smetana. This similarity, of course, has been pointed out at least a million times. It's included in most program notes to the tone poem. But here's one I haven't seen ...

Difficult but worth it. For those in the US and abroad not familiar with this superb institution (in Philadelphia) it is entirely scholarship, i.e. no tuition. One of its early students was Samuel Barber, who had a triple major, voice, piano, and composition. There is a quota system: at any given ti...

ROTFLOL As the great philosopher Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim said while in his cups, "This is art with a capital F."

Tchaikovsky's 2nd starts with a full eighth-note chord; the 1st horn holds his note for the full measure, then starts the melody solo. And Mahler's 3rd, like Schubert's Great C Major, starts with a unison horn melody--but 8 of them! But "almost" only counts in horseshoes (and H-bombs and h...

I assume that you clarinetists (What a lovely instrument!) are familiar with the Concerto and the 5 Bagatelles by Gerald Finzi. And pianists should get (from Boosey) his Eclogue for piano and strings. Most of his songs are still under copyright (again Boosey--expensive but worth it) but the cycle A ...

A few more random thoughts: I think this forum is great fun, most of the contributions intelligent, and informative, too. Congrats to those who got the riddle. Haydn uses the CDFE theme in one of his early symphonies as well. Probably true Brahms story: when someone pointed out the similarity of the...

Quick replies to replies: notice the " " on stolen; Mahler may have heard the Pachelbel, but it is unlikely he consciously imitated it. There are only so many notes. Handel did not write Joy to the World. Mendelssohn, Schumann, and Wagner did not rip off Beethoven's Les Adieux (Elgar is an...