Klaus Döring's Classical Music/Klaus Döring's Klassische Musik

Debussy’s greatest masterpieces.  Picture: Alamy By Siena Linton, ClassicFM   From lazy woodland creatures on a hot summer’s day to the plains of southern Spain, Claude Debussy is the unparalleled master of evocative musical imagery. Forever entwined in the imaginations of his admirers with lethargic fauns, and idyllic woodlands thick with summer haze, Claude Debussy was classical music’s answer to the impressionist art movement which took Paris by storm in the mid to late 19th century. As Monet, Cézanne and Renoir were masters of the visual arts, so Debussy was a master at crafting intricate and mesmerising soundscapes, transporting his audiences to dream-like worlds with his musical reveries. Petite Suite (1907) Originally written for piano with four hands, Debussy’s  Petite Suite  was orchestrated by his colleague Henri Büsser in 1907. Made up of four movements, the first evokes a picturesque seaside vista. Titled ‘En bateau’, or ‘Sailing’, it’...

Russian composer Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate was engulfed in flames over the weekend.  Picture: Governor of the Pskov region Mikhail Vedernikov By Sophia Alexandra Hall, ClassicFM @sophiassocials   Said to have been caused by careless builders, a fire at Rimsky-Korsakov’s estate has done untold damage, destroying thousands of artefacts belonging to the 19th-century Russian composer. This weekend, a fire broke out in the estate and memorial museum of 19th-century composer, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov. Over half of the exhibits have been destroyed in the blaze, which has devastated more than 1,000 artefacts. Born in the town of Tikhvin, 200km east of St Petersburg, Rimsky-Korsakov was a prolific composer, scoring a considerable body of nationalistic music including orchestral, choral, and operatic works. He is particularly notable for being one of ‘The Five’, a collection of five Russian composers including  Modest Mussorgsky , and  Alexander Borodin , who led the way i...

by  Maureen Buja, Interlude      Channeling the sound and fury of nature through an orchestra gives everyone, from the composer to the conductor to the orchestra (primarily the string section) a thorough workout. Antonio Vivaldi:  The Four Seasons – Violin Concerto in G Minor, Op. 8 (Summer) © unripecontent.com One of the most familiar of storms is in the third movement of  Vivaldi’s  Summer  concerto from the  Four Seasons  (1720). The sonnet that goes with the concertos sets this up at the end of the first verse: ‘Soft breezes stir the air, but threatening | the North Wind sweeps them suddenly aside. |The shepherd trembles, | fearing violent storms and his fate’. And then, in the 3rd verse: ‘The Heavens thunder and roar and with hail | Cut the head off the wheat and damages the grain’. And starting with rain in the violins, the heavens open. Jean-Philippe Rameau:  Platée  – Act I Scene 6 – Orage Jean-Paul Fouchécourt as ...

by   Maureen Buja, Interlude Sometimes composer break out of their box – make a new sound – make you hear music a new way – and sometimes it’s the performers who help as well. Take a listen to these performances and these interesting works from a variety of composers from the Renaissance period to today. We’re so used to hearing BIG Beethoven. Large chords, rhythms that never seem to end, dramatic statements. But what happens if you change the means of performance? Is this the way you imagined the  Moonlight Sonata ?  © Wikipedia Luciano Berio was commissioned by the New York Philharmonic for a work for its 125th anniversary, for its 1968-69 season. He gave them  Sinfonia , for orchestra and 8 amplified voices, to create not a history of music, but a distorted history of culture. The third movement is a mélange of musical quotation and text quotations. The movement starts with extensive quotations from Mahler’s Symphony No. 2, a composer championed by ...

Composer John Williams.  Picture:  Getty By Kyle Macdonald, ClassicFM   In a new interview, the legendary film music composer suggests he might be writing his final score. Movie music maestro  John Williams  has given his strongest hint yet at retirement, and that film music’s greatest and most illustrious career might be nearing its final chapter. In an  interview  published on Thursday by Associated Press, the 90-year-old reflected on his work in film. Williams said “At the moment I’m working on  Indiana Jones 5 , which Harrison Ford – who’s quite a bit younger than I am – I think has announced will be his last film.” He then hinted it may be the same case for him: “I thought: If Harrison can do it, then perhaps I can, also.” A  Star Wars  film demands six months of work, he said. “At this point in life [that] is a long commitment to me.” Read more:  10 of John Williams’ all-time greatest film themes, ranked Alongside the score to...

by Maureen Buja  , Interlude   The ceramic modeler Johann Joachim Kändler designed many music objects for the porcelain maker Meissen. In addition to the  figures of the singer with the fox at the keyboard , he also did other figurines of singers. This group of two singers at the Metropolitan Museum, created by Kändler has been identified as Madame de Pompadour and the Prince de Rohan singing in the opera  Acis and Galatea , in a production that took place at Versailles in 1749. However, in the record books of Kändler, we find that this group dates from 1744. Now we can start to look for other points of inspiration. Two opera singers  (Metropolitan Museum) We know of Kändler’s familiarity with the opera scene at the Dresden court and if we look at the designs for Hasse’s opera  Antigono , which was staged in Dresden in 1744, we see a male costume much like what is shown here. Francesco Ponte:  Antigono : design for the character Learco, 1744 The costum...

  B y Siena Linton, ClassicFM   The legendary conductor was seen wiping away tears as Yunchan Lim thundered through the finale of Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto. Six competitors went head-to-head at the weekend in the final round of the sixteenth Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas. Over four days from 14 to 18 June, each of the finalists brought two concertos to the stage to perform with the Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra under the baton of legendary conductor Marin Alsop. 18-year-old South Korean  pianist  Yunchan Lim was one of three finalists to select Rachmaninov’s third piano concerto, which he performed during the third concert of the final round on Friday 17 June. Throughout the competition, Lim performed a wide range of works by Bach to Beethoven, Chopin to Scriabin, including a highly praised rendition of  Liszt ’s  Transcendental Études . But it was his final perfo...

  Josef Strauss and Karoline Pruckmayer “Always With You, Only Because of You, and Forever for You!”    By  Georg Predota, Interlude Josef Strauss © Naxos Digital Services The musical  Strauss family dynasty  took full advantage of the pleasure-seeking and carefree spirit of Imperial Vienna. As members of the public piled into the great dancehalls of the city, the Strauss family gleefully provided the musical background that gaily sent the Viennese population into throbbing gyrations. As leaders of the string section in the Strauss Orchestra, they fiddled their way into the hearts and beds of numerous young maidens.  Johann Strauss I and Johann Strauss II —widely known as the Waltz King—became the darlings of the Viennese dance craze and the objects of female desire. Messy divorces, squabbles over illegitimate children and an occasional suicide attempt were all part of the Strauss musical empire.  Josef Strauss  (1827-1870), son of Johann I a...