On September 21, 22 & 23, the Houston Symphony performs Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 9 as part of its Bronfman Plays Prokofiev program led by Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada. Learn more about this fascinating work in the post below. Like Prokofiev’s First Symphony, Shostakovich’s Ninth was written in a fateful year: 1945. It also subverted the … Continued
On August 21, 1875 the Dvořák family suffered a tragedy. The newest addition to the family, a daughter Josefa, passed away only two days after being born. Six months later, Antonín Dvořák began to set to music the Stabat Mater dolorosa, a Latin poem composed by Franciscans in the 13th century that meditates on the … Continued
On September 21, 22 and 23, 2018, world renowned piano virtuoso Yefim Bronfman returns to Houston to perform Prokofiev’s spellbinding Piano Concerto No. 2 with Music Director Andrés Orozco-Estrada and the Houston Symphony. Discover the dark backstory behind this fascinating masterpiece. Prokofiev composed his second piano concerto at the age of 21 while on winter … Continued
Though he would live several decades more, Charles Ives stopped composing entirely by 1927. Many have speculated as to why, but the ultimate reason for his silence remains a mystery. His last symphony was thus one of his final works. Begun around 1910, Ives labored over it for many years, refining and altering the score … Continued
The Houston Symphony performs highlights from Prokofiev’s Romeo and Juliet as part of the Opening Night Concert of the orchestra’s 105th Season on Saturday, September 8, 2018. Learn more about this beloved ballet score in the post below. The commission for the ballet Romeo and Juliet in 1934 was part of the Soviet Union’s charm … Continued
Piano virtuoso Yuja Wang plays solo works by Rachmaninoff and Ravel’s extraordinary Concerto for the Left Hand at the Opening Night Concert of the Houston Symphony’s 105th Season on Saturday, September 8 at Jones Hall. In this post, discover this fascinating masterpiece, which miraculously creates the sound of two hands while using only one. Less … Continued
Is it possible for a work of art to become too famous for its own good? Like Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa or Shakespeare’s “To be or not to be” soliloquy, Beethoven’s Fifth is a work that has been so often reproduced, excerpted and remixed that it has become as easy to ignore a as … Continued
There are few individuals who truly change the course of history. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827) is one of those individuals. There is music before Beethoven and music after Beethoven; the revolution wrought by his works continues to resonate through music made today. From later classical composers to Hollywood film scores and even rock ’n’ roll, … Continued
There’s nothing more fun than a trip down memory lane—and this month, the Houston Symphony has the perfect soundtrack to fire your nostalgia-fest when we salute artists whose one shining moment left an indelible mark on the charts and in our hearts. Learn more about some of the unforgettable songs by the one-hit wonders featured … Continued
In 1870, Brahms’ friend the musicologist Carl Ferdinand Pohl shared one of his discoveries with the composer: a piece for woodwind octet that he believed to be an unknown work by the great eighteenth century composer Joseph Haydn. Intrigued, Brahms copied down the second movement, which was labelled “Chorale St. Anthoni” and consisted of a … Continued
Jean Sibelius’ first musical instruction came in the form of piano lessons from his aunt Julia. Sibelius was a troublesome student, however; his habit of improvising instead of practicing his etudes would often earn him “raps across the knuckles.” He never really took to the piano. It was only as a teenager that he discovered … Continued
On February 2, 1865, Johannes Brahms received an urgent telegram from his brother Fritz: “If you want to see our mother once again, come immediately.” At age 76 their mother, Christiane Brahms, had had a stroke. Brahms hastened to her from Vienna, but she had already passed away by the time he arrived in Hamburg. … Continued
Above: One of Nicholas Roerich’s original set designs for The Rite of Spring. After the failed revolution of 1905, a cloud of apocalyptic doom seemed to hover over the Russian Empire. With freedom of speech severely curtailed, many artists turned to increasingly subjective, mysterious sources of inspiration. Some, like the composer Alexander Scriabin, were captivated … Continued
Though he published it second, Chopin’s Piano Concerto in F minor was actually the first concerto he composed. After a surprisingly successful impromptu solo debut in Vienna, the nineteen-year-old composer returned home to Warsaw to compose a concerto that he could play on tours in the future. Chopin completed it during the fall of 1829 … Continued
According to his novelist friend Romain Rolland, Richard Strauss once quipped that “In music one can say everything. People won’t understand you.” Strauss’ characteristically humorous remark seems particularly applicable to Also sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spake Zarathustra), one of his best known yet most misunderstood works. Ever since Stanley Kubrick used it to score a cosmic … Continued
In the summer of 1929, the conductor Serge Koussevitzky was making plans for the 50th anniversary season of the Boston Symphony, for which he served as music director. A champion of contemporary music, he decided to mark the occasion by commissioning a symphony from one of the world’s leading composers: Igor Stravinsky. Returning to the … Continued
Leonard Bernstein first read Auden’s The Age of Anxiety: A Baroque Eclogue in the summer of 1947, shortly after it was published. Auden’s extravagant, book-length poem would go on to win a Pulitzer Prize in 1948, but it began to stir Bernstein’s musical imagination immediately. Between 1947 and 1949, he would compose an unconventional symphony … Continued
In 1909, the Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev was running out of time. After a grand duke who had been a key backer of his ventures dropped dead and his widow refused to give him any more money, Diaghilev had been forced to abandon his plans to present Russian opera in Paris in the spring of … Continued
Many have accused Bernstein of pretentiousness in associating his Serenade with Plato’s Symposium, suggesting that he merely tacked on the highfalutin subtitle after he had already composed it. Critics typically cite discrepancies between Plato’s classic and the Serenade, arguing that one has little to do with the other: compared with Plato’s book, the movements are … Continued
In January 1934, Dmitri Shostakovich scored one of the biggest triumphs of his career with the premiere of Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District, a work official critics hailed as the first great Soviet opera. Based on a nineteenth-century novella by Leskov, it follows the misadventures of Katerina, the illiterate wife of a well-to-do country … Continued