The Concerto for Horn and Strings is a concerto for horn and string orchestra in three movements by the English composer Gordon Jacob. The work was composed in 1951 for soloist Dennis Brain and premiered on 8 May 1951, with Jacob conducting the Riddick String Orchestra in Wigmore Hall, London. The piece has been regarded as one of the most popular horn concertos of the 20th century. [1] [2]
The work has a duration of roughly 25 minutes and is composed in three movements: [1]
Reviewing its world premiere, The Musical Times wrote, "It is music designed for entertainment rather than edification, thrown off with the sure, light touch of a master craftsman, but though it in no way taxes the listener, it makes phenomenal demands on the soloist." [1] In 2007, Andrew McGregor of the BBC also praised the concerto, writing:
Brain gave the first performance of Gordon Jacob's Horn Concerto in 1951: almost a string serenade in dialogue with the solo horn… and Jacob concentrates on the upper reaches of the instrument, where Brain’s gleaming sound was so strong and flexible, the first movement ending with an exultant top C. The slow movement is gentle, wistful nocturne, before the explosive brilliance of the finale: rapid tonguing, then a broad horn melody over scampering strings. It’s a genuinely catchy concerto... [3]
Dennis Brain was a British horn player. From a musical family – his father and grandfather were horn players – he attended the Royal Academy of Music in London. During the Second World War he served in the Royal Air Force, playing in its band and orchestra. After the war he was principal horn of the Philharmonia and Royal Philharmonic orchestras, and played in chamber ensembles.
Alban Berg's Violin Concerto was written in 1935. It is probably Berg's best-known and most frequently performed instrumental piece, in which the composer sought to reconcile diatonicism and dodecaphony. The work was commissioned by Louis Krasner, and dedicated by Berg to "the memory of an angel", Manon Gropius. It was the last work that Berg completed. Krasner performed the solo part in the premiere at the Palau de la Música Catalana, Barcelona, on 19 April 1936, after the composer's death.
Malcolm Benjamin Graham Christopher Williamson, AO, CBE was an Australian composer. He was the Master of the Queen's Music from 1975 until his death.
The Violin Concerto in D minor, Op. 47 of Jean Sibelius, originally composed in 1904 and revised in 1905, is the only concerto by Sibelius. It is symphonic in scope and included an extended cadenza for the soloist which takes on the role of the development section in the first movement.
Felix Mendelssohn's Violin Concerto in E minor, Op. 64, is his last concerto. Well received at its premiere, it has remained among the most prominent and highly-regarded violin concertos. It holds a central place in the violin repertoire and has developed a reputation as an essential concerto for all aspiring concert violinists to master, and usually one of the first Romantic era concertos they learn. A typical performance lasts just under half an hour.
Edward Elgar's Cello Concerto in E minor, Op. 85, his last notable work, is a cornerstone of the solo cello repertoire. Elgar composed it in the aftermath of the First World War, when his music had already gone out of fashion with the concert-going public. In contrast with Elgar's earlier Violin Concerto, which is lyrical and passionate, the Cello Concerto is for the most part contemplative and elegiac.
Peter Racine Fricker was an English composer, among the first to establish his career entirely after the Second World War. He lived in the US for the last thirty years of his life. Fricker wrote over 160 works in all the main genres excepting opera. He was a descendant of the French playwright Racine.
The Sinfonia Concertante for Violin, Viola and Orchestra in E♭ major, K. 364 (320d), was written by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart.
Gordon Percival Septimus Jacob CBE was an English composer and teacher. He was a professor at the Royal College of Music in London from 1924 until his retirement in 1966, and published four books and many articles about music. As a composer he was prolific: the list of his works totals more than 700, mostly compositions of his own, but a substantial minority of orchestrations and arrangements of other composers' works. Those whose music he orchestrated range from William Byrd to Edward Elgar to Noël Coward.
The Piano Concerto, Op. 38, by Samuel Barber was commissioned by the music publishing company G. Schirmer in honor of the centenary of their founding. The premiere was on September 24, 1962, in the opening festivities of Philharmonic Hall, now David Geffen Hall, the first hall built at Lincoln Center in Manhattan, with John Browning as soloist with the Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by Erich Leinsdorf.
The Violin Concerto No. 1, Op. 6, was composed by Niccolò Paganini in Italy, probably between 1817 and 1818. It was premiered in Naples on 31 March 1819.
The Cello Concerto in D major is Arthur Sullivan's only concerto and was one of his earliest large-scale works. It was written for the Italian cellist Alfredo Piatti and premiered on 24 November 1866 at the Crystal Palace, London, with August Manns conducting. After this, it was performed only a few times. The score was not published, and the manuscript was destroyed in a fire in the 1960s, but the full score was reconstructed by the conductors Sir Charles Mackerras and David Mackie in the 1980s. Their version was premiered and published in 1986.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Horn Concerto No. 2 in E-flat major, K. 417 was completed in 1783.
An organ concerto is a piece of music, an instrumental concerto for a pipe organ soloist with an orchestra. The form first evolved in the 18th century, when composers including Antonio Vivaldi, George Frideric Handel and Johann Sebastian Bach wrote organ concertos with small orchestras, and with solo parts which rarely call for the organ pedal board. During the Classical period the organ concerto became popular in many places, especially in Bavaria, Austria and Bohemia, reaching a position of being almost an integral part of the church music tradition of jubilus character. From the Romantic era fewer works are known. Finally, there are some 20th- and 21st-century examples, of which the concerto by Francis Poulenc has entered the basic repertoire, and is quite frequently played.
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.
William Walton's Cello Concerto (1957) is the third and last of the composer's concertos for string instruments, following his Viola Concerto (1929) and Violin Concerto (1939). It was written between February and October 1956, commissioned by and dedicated to the cellist Gregor Piatigorsky, the soloist at the premiere in Boston on 25 January 1957.
Benjamin Britten's Piano Concerto, Op. 13, is the composer's sole piano concerto.
The Piano Concerto in C minor is one of the early compositions by the English composer Frederick Delius. The piece underwent repeated revisions that resulted in the existence of three major versions which significantly differ from one another. The first public performance of any version was played by Julius Buths with the conductor Hans Haym on 24 October 1904 in Elberfeld, Germany.
Graham Whettam was an English post-romantic composer.
Kathleen Riddick was a British musician, one of the first women in Britain to establish herself in the male-dominated profession of conducting. To do so at a time when it was "considered impossible" for a woman to become a conductor Riddick was initially obliged to found her own ensembles to lead. They included the Surrey Philharmonic Orchestra in 1932, and the London Women's String Orchestra in 1938. But she was also appeared as guest conductor of BBC orchestras and the London Symphony Orchestra.