Conservatorium of Music
Friday Performance Class
Friday Performance Class
| Concerto pour saxophone alto et orchestra | Henri Tomasi (1901 - 1971) |
| I - Andante Et Allegro | |
| Mitchell Flynn, Alto Saxophone | |
| Prix De Rome winner Henri Tomasi composed this work as a Paris Conservatoire contest piece, dedicated to French saxophonist Marcel Mule who later gave the premier that year. The opening movement, "Andante Et Allegro", has two movements within itself. The Andante section starts with a slow, sombre opening statement by the soloist, which slowly expands to reveal a rich sonorous pallet. Following this is the Allegro, which draws material from the Andante section and expands upon it in various melodic and motivic ways. | |
| Piano Concerto No. 3 in E major, Sz. 119, BB 127 | Bela Bartok (1881 - 1945) |
| Mvt 2. Adagio religioso Mvt 3. Allegro vivace | |
| Po Goh, Piano | |
| Konrad Olszewski, piano | |
| Bartók composed the piece in 1945 during the final months of his life, as a surprise birthday present for his second wife Ditta Pásztory-Bartók. The Piano Concerto No. 3 was one of the pieces composed by Bartók after departing Hungary following the outbreak of World War II. | |
| Piano Concerto in F-sharp Minor Op.20 | Alexander Scriabin (1872 - 1915) |
| Mvt. 2 - Andante - Allegro scherzando - Adagio - Allegretto - Andante Mvt. 3 - Allegro moderato | |
| Ray Liang, Piano | |
| Konrad Olszewski, piano | |
| Scriabin's piano concerto was written in 1896 when he was 24. It was his first work for orchestra and the only concerto he composed. | |
| Albarada del gracioso | Maurice Ravel (1875 - ) |
| Zhihan Jiang, Piano | |
| Miroirs No.4 from a set of 5 pieces. | |
| Etude no. 5, Pour Les Octaves (L 136) | Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918) |
| Samuel Hill, Piano | |
| Timothy Judd writes: "[Debussy] began working on [the Etudes] on July 23, 1915 at a sea-side chalet in Dieppe in Normandy. Fear of an impending German occupation of Paris had driven him to the countryside. He was beginning to show signs of the cancer that would take his life three years later. The ghosts of past pianists seem to have been looking over Debussy’s shoulder." (The Listener's Club, July 2015) The set was dedicated to Frederic Chopin. | |
| Etudes-Tableaux, Op. 33 No 8 in C# Minor | Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873 - 1943) |
| Samuel Hill, Piano | |
| Rachmaninoff's Etudes-Tableaux, or "study pictures" famously have no stimuli attached to them, so I too will leave it to the audience to "paint for themselves" what the C# Minor study's sombre tempo, and rich, dark, sonorities suggest. | |