Franz Schmidt, also Ferenc Schmidt was an Austro-Hungarian composer, cellist and pianist.
Robert Wilfred Levick Simpson was an English composer and long-serving BBC producer and broadcaster.
Symphony No. 4 in G major by Gustav Mahler was written in 1899 and 1900, though it incorporates a song originally written in 1892. The song, "Das himmlische Leben", presents a child's vision of Heaven. It is sung by a soprano in the work's fourth and final movement. Although typically described as being in the key of G major, the symphony employs a progressive tonal scheme.
The Piano Concerto No. 2 in B♭ major, Op. 83, by Johannes Brahms is separated by a gap of 22 years from his first piano concerto. Brahms began work on the piece in 1878 and completed it in 1881 while in Pressbaum near Vienna. It took him three years to work on this concerto which indicates that he was always self-critical. He wrote to Clara Schumann: "I want to tell you that I have written a very small piano concerto with a very small and pretty scherzo." Ironically, he was describing a huge piece. This concerto is dedicated to his teacher, Eduard Marxsen. The public premiere of the concerto was given in Budapest on 9 November 1881, with Brahms as soloist and the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, and was an immediate success. He proceeded to perform the piece in many cities across Europe.
The Symphony No. 3 in E♭ major, Op. 55, is a symphony in four movements by Ludwig van Beethoven.
In music, variation is a formal technique where material is repeated in an altered form. The changes may involve melody, rhythm, harmony, counterpoint, timbre, orchestration or any combination of these.
Sergei Prokofiev began his Violin Concerto No. 1 in D major, Op. 19, as a concertino in 1915 but soon abandoned it to work on his opera The Gambler. He returned to the concerto in the summer of 1917. It premiered on October 18, 1923 at the Paris Opera with Marcel Darrieux playing the violin part and the Paris Opera Orchestra conducted by Serge Koussevitzky. Igor Stravinsky made his debut as conductor at the same concert, conducting the first performance of his own Octet for Wind Instruments.
Anton Bruckner’s Symphony No. 2 in C minor, sometimes known as the "Symphony of Pauses", was completed in 1872. It was actually the fourth symphony composed by Bruckner, after the Symphony in F minor (1863), the Symphony No. 1 in C minor (1866), and the Symphony in D minor (1869).
Franz Theodor Reizenstein was a German-born British composer and concert pianist. He left Germany for sanctuary in Britain in 1934 and went on to have his teaching and performing career there. As a composer, he successfully blended the equally strong but very different influences of his primary teachers, Hindemith and Vaughan Williams.
Ein Heldenleben, Op. 40, is a tone poem by Richard Strauss. The work was completed in 1898. It was his eighth work in the genre, and exceeded any of its predecessors in its orchestral demands. Generally agreed to be autobiographical in nature despite contradictory statements on the matter by the composer, the work contains more than thirty quotations from Strauss's earlier works, including Also sprach Zarathustra, Till Eulenspiegel, Don Quixote, Don Juan, and Death and Transfiguration.
Ralph Vaughan Williams's Symphony No. 8 in D minor was composed between 1953 and 1955. Sir John Barbirolli, its dedicatee, conducted the Hallé Orchestra in the premiere at the Free Trade Hall in Manchester on 2 May 1956. It is the shortest of the composer's nine symphonies, and is mostly buoyant and optimistic in tone.
The Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Mozart, Op. 132, is a set of variations for orchestra composed in 1914 by Max Reger; the composer conducted the premiere in Berlin on 5 February 1915. He later produced a version for two pianos, Op. 132a, where the Variation 8 ("Moderato") is completely different.
Orchestral Suite No. 1 in D minor is an orchestral suite, Op. 43, written by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky in 1878 and 1879. It was premiered on December 20, 1879 at a Russian Musical Society concert in Moscow, conducted by Nikolai Rubinstein. The piece is dedicated to Tchaikovsky's patroness, Nadezhda von Meck.
Rustic Wedding Symphony, Op. 26 is a symphony in E flat major by Karl Goldmark, written in 1875, a year before his renowned Violin Concerto No. 1. The symphony was premiered in Vienna on 5 March 1876, conducted by Hans Richter. Johannes Brahms, who was a frequent walking companion of Goldmark's, and whose own Symphony No. 1 was not premiered until November 1876, told him "That is the best thing you have done; clear-cut and faultless, it sprang into being a finished thing, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter". Its first American performance was at a New York Philharmonic Society concert, conducted by Theodore Thomas on 13 January 1877.
Variations and Fugue on a Theme by Hiller, Op. 100, is a set of variations for orchestra written by the German composer Max Reger in 1904. They are based on an original melodic line by the 18th-century composer Johann Adam Hiller. Reger conducted the premiere in Cologne, Germany on 15 October 1907. Along with the composer's Mozart Variations, the Hiller Variations are one of his most popular and frequently recorded works.
The Symphony No. 3 is a symphony in five movements composed between 1988 and 1995 by Krzysztof Penderecki. It was commissioned and completed for the centenary of the Munich Philharmonic. Its earliest version, Passacaglia and Rondo, premiered at the International Music Festival Week in Lucerne, Switzerland, on August 20, 1988. It was performed by the Lucerne Festival Orchestra and conducted by Penderecki. The full symphony premiered in Munich on 8 December 1995, performed by the Munich Philharmonic, again conducted by the composer.
The Symphony No. 2 in E, Op. 40, was completed by Ernő Dohnányi in 1944, at the close of the Second World War. It was revised later in the 1950s. Written with audible roots in the Romantic tradition, the work is largely lyrical, yet maintains a controlled militaristic air inspired by the events surrounding its composition. It references a variety of musical backgrounds, including the work of Brahms, Wagner, Kabalevsky, and Bach. Bach's song Komm, süßer Tod serves as the basis for a significant portion of the finale.
Richard Strauss composed his Symphony No. 1 in D minor in 1880 when he was just 16 years old. It consists of four movements, and lasts about 34 minutes. Although Strauss did not give a number to the symphony, it is often referred to as his First Symphony. It was premiered on 30 March 1881 at the Munich Academy of Music under the baton of Hermann Levi.
The Symphony No. 4 Op. 60 is a work for solo piano and orchestra written by the Polish composer Karol Szymanowski between March and June of 1932. It is dedicated to the pianist Arthur Rubinstein. Szymanowski himself played the piano part at the premiere performance on 9 October 1932, with Grzegorz Fitelberg conducting the Poznań City Orchestra.
The Symphony No. 1 in G minor by Russian composer Vasily Kalinnikov was written from 1894 to 1895 and first published in 1900. The symphony is dedicated to Russian music critic and teacher Semyon Kruglikov.
