A Birthday: Anton Arensky
Evening Music | May 6, 2010
Anton Arensky, a young composer who had been befriended by Tchaikovsky, expressed his devastation at Tchaikovsky’s death in 1893 through music, dedicating his 1894 String Quartet to his friend.
Arensky, whose birthday is today (1861), scored his quartet for the unusual grouping of one violin, one, viola, and two cellos, which immediately gives a darker tone to the proceedings. The outer movements both use traditional Russian funeral music, while the inner music is a set a variations based on a famous Tchaikovsky song, “Legend.” Arensky’s voice is his own, but is even more beautiful when embellishing a theme of Peter Ilyich.
Aston Magna is playing music of the French Baroque at Bard College on July 15th. We go for Baroque here at WNYC this evening, bringing you the group Chatham Baroque as they play trios “pour le coucher du Roy” by Jean-Baptiste Lully. In case you are wondering, these are from a bunch of dance suites composed by Lully for the king’s bedtime preparations.
Lou Harrison’s Suite for Violin and American Gamelan was actually a cooperative venture with Richard Dee. The six-movement work was commissioned by the San Francisco Chamber Music Society, and first performed in 1973.
» Aston Magna at Bard
Arensky, whose birthday is today (1861), scored his quartet for the unusual grouping of one violin, one, viola, and two cellos, which immediately gives a darker tone to the proceedings. The outer movements both use traditional Russian funeral music, while the inner music is a set a variations based on a famous Tchaikovsky song, “Legend.” Arensky’s voice is his own, but is even more beautiful when embellishing a theme of Peter Ilyich.
Aston Magna is playing music of the French Baroque at Bard College on July 15th. We go for Baroque here at WNYC this evening, bringing you the group Chatham Baroque as they play trios “pour le coucher du Roy” by Jean-Baptiste Lully. In case you are wondering, these are from a bunch of dance suites composed by Lully for the king’s bedtime preparations.
Lou Harrison’s Suite for Violin and American Gamelan was actually a cooperative venture with Richard Dee. The six-movement work was commissioned by the San Francisco Chamber Music Society, and first performed in 1973.
» Aston Magna at Bard
