Arthur Honegger was a Swiss composer, who was born in France and lived a large part of his life in Paris. A member of Les Six, his best known work is probably Antigone, composed between 1924 and 1927 to the French libretto by Jean Cocteau based on the tragedy Antigone by Sophocles. It premiered on 28 December 1927 at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie with sets designed by Pablo Picasso and costumes by Coco Chanel. However, his most frequently performed work is probably the orchestral work Pacific 231, which was inspired by the sound of a steam locomotive.
The Brandenburg Concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach, are a collection of six instrumental works presented by Bach to Christian Ludwig, Margrave of Brandenburg-Schwedt, in 1721. The original French title is Six Concerts à plusieurs instruments, meaning "Six Concertos for several instruments". Some of them feature several solo instruments in combination. They are widely regarded as some of the best orchestral compositions of the Baroque era.
Paul Sacher was a Swiss conductor, patron and impresario. He founded and conducted the Basler Kammerorchester (1926–1987). He commissioned notable works of composers of the 20th century and premiered them with the chamber orchestra. While better known for his interest in new music, he was also devoted to music of baroque and classical eras; he founded the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis, institute for early music, in 1933.
The Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major, K. 216, was composed by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart in Salzburg in 1775 when he was 19 years old. In a letter to his father, Mozart called it the "Straßburg-Concert". Researchers believe this epithet comes from the motive in the third movement's central section, a local, minuet-like dance that already had appeared as a musette-imitating tune in a symphony by Carl Ditters von Dittersdorf.
Conrad Arthur Beck was a Swiss composer.
Igor Stravinsky's Concerto in D ("Basle") for string orchestra was composed in Hollywood between the beginning of 1946 and 8 August of the same year in response to a 1946 commission from Paul Sacher to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Basler Kammerorchester, and for this reason is sometimes referred to as the "Basle" Concerto.
The Horn Trio in E♭ major, Op. 40, by Johannes Brahms is a chamber piece in four movements written for natural horn, violin, and piano. Composed in 1865, the work commemorates the death of Brahms's mother, Christiane, earlier that year. However, it draws on a theme which Brahms had composed twelve years previously but did not publish at the time.
The Strathclyde Concertos are a series of ten orchestral works by the English composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies.
Zdeněk Lukáš was a prolific Czech composer who composed over 330 works. He graduated from a teachers' college and worked as a teacher from 1953 to 1963. He was a musical editor and program director at the National Broadcasting Company in Pilsen and conducted the Česká píseň, a choir in Pilsen.
William Jay Sydeman was an American composer. Born in New York, he studied at the Mannes School of Music, where he later taught composition (1960–1970). Winning early acclaim for his avant-garde music, he felt trapped by the prevailing orthodoxies and moved to California in 1970, beginning a period of wandering during which he also studied Buddhism and Anthroposophy. He joined ASCAP in 1975. In 1981 he settled in Sacramento and resumed composition at his former prolific rate, having newly embraced a neotonal musical language. He later moved to Mendocino.
Divertimento for String Orchestra Sz.113 BB.118 is a three-movement work composed by Béla Bartók in 1939, scored for full orchestral strings. Paul Sacher, a Swiss conductor, patron, impresario, and the founder of the chamber orchestra Basler Kammerorchester, commissioned Bartók to compose the Divertimento, which is now known to be the pair's last collaborative work.
The Symphony No. 2 for strings and trumpet by Arthur Honegger was commissioned in 1937 by Paul Sacher to mark the tenth anniversary of the chamber orchestra Basler Kammerorchester. Progress was slow, however, in part due to the interruption of the Second World War. The music is primarily for strings alone and is very turbulent and troubled until the trumpet soloist enters near the end of the music, giving this mostly tragic work a hopeful ending.
The Concerti Grossi, Op. 6, or Twelve Grand Concertos, HWV 319–330, are 12 concerti grossi by George Frideric Handel for a concertino trio of two violins and violoncello and a ripieno four-part string orchestra with harpsichord continuo. First published by subscription in London by John Walsh in 1739, in the second edition of 1741 they became Handel's Opus 6. Taking the older concerto da chiesa and concerto da camera of Arcangelo Corelli as models, rather than the later three-movement Venetian concerto of Antonio Vivaldi favoured by Johann Sebastian Bach, they were written to be played during performances of Handel's oratorios and odes. Despite the conventional model, Handel incorporated in the movements the full range of his compositional styles, including trio sonatas, operatic arias, French overtures, Italian sinfonias, airs, fugues, themes and variations and a variety of dances. The concertos were largely composed of new material: they are amongst the finest examples in the genre of baroque concerto grosso.
The Musette, or rather chaconne, in this Concerto, was always in favour with the composer himself, as well as the public; for I well remember that HANDEL frequently introduced it between the parts of his Oratorios, both before and after publication. Indeed no instrumental composition that I have ever heard during the long favour of this, seemed to me more grateful and pleasing, particularly, in subject.
Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, Op. 13, is the composer's sole piano concerto.
Concerto da camera, or in English chamber concerto, originally was one of the two types of concerto grosso, the other being the concerto da chiesa. The concerto da camera had the character of a suite, being introduced by a prelude and incorporating popular dance forms. Antonio Vivaldi and Georg Philipp Telemann were great exponents of this form of music. Later it became a popular name for any concerto in a chamber music or chamber orchestra setting.
Louis-Marius Speyer was a French-born American oboist best known for playing solo English horn in the Boston Symphony Orchestra from 1918 to 1964.
The Concerto Grosso No. 1 was the first of six concerti grossi by Soviet composer Alfred Schnittke. It was written in 1976–1977 at the request of Gidon Kremer and Tatiana Grindenko who were also the violin soloists at its premiere on 21 March 1977 in Leningrad together with Yuri Smirnov on keyboard instruments and the Leningrad Chamber Orchestra under Eri Klas. It is one of the best-known of Schnittke's polystylistic compositions and marked his break-through in the West.
Bohuslav Martinů's Double Concerto for Two String Orchestras, Piano, and Timpani was written in Switzerland in 1938 during deteriorating diplomatic relationships throughout Europe. Commissioned by Paul Sacher for the Basel Chamber Orchestra, it reflects intense impressions, from both the composer's personal life and the political events of the time.
The Concerto for Viola and Orchestra is a viola concerto by the American composer John Harbison. The work was commissioned by the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra with contributions from Meet The Composer and Reader's Digest. It was first performed by Jaime Laredo and the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Hugh Wolff on May 18, 1990.
The Double Concerto by German composer Hans Werner Henze is a double concerto for oboe and harp, better known by its original Italian title Doppio concerto. It was completed and first performed in Zurich in 1966, and published by Schott.
