Peter Jost

Two copies needed for performance This was the last concerto that Saint-Saëns wrote for his own instrument, the piano. Its subtitle has a dual meaning. Firstly, it was composed quickly in Luxor and Ca...

Given Saint-Saëns' talents both as pianist and composer, it stood to reason that he would engage with the piano concerto genre early on. But he gave a clear renunciation of the 'concerto brilliant' th...

Despite its unusual form - a structure with two sections, each comprising two movements that are to be played without interruption - this work from 1875 enjoyed great success from the start. In its ba...

The composition and publication of the first two volumes of Liszt's 'Années de pèlerinage' are closely interlinked. Barely a year after returning from Switzerland, Liszt and his companion Marie d'Agou...

In the “Nocturnes” for orchestra and women’s chorus, composed between 1897 and 1899, Debussy realised his concept that the musical form should emerge freely from the material. With the tripartite stru...

During his youth, Richard Strauss composed a large number of works for piano solo, among them numerous sonatas. Yet it was only the Sonata in b-minor that he obviously considered important enough to w...

Revised edition replaces HN173 The three volumes of the 'Années de pèlerinage' belong to the core of Liszt's piano oeuvre. In the first volume, 'Suisse', the composer realised impressions of an extend...

The three volumes of the 'Années de pèlerinage' (Years of Pilgrimage) are a core part of Liszt's pianistic output. While the first two collections comprise travel impressions from Switzerland and Ital...

The seventh Hungarian Rhapsody, which was issued in 1853, is based on three themes from Hungarian folk music: an older instrumental melody and two peasant songs. We find here all the typical character...

Liszt understood a "rhapsody" to signify the highest degree of musical freedom: a constant process of transformation and variation of themes and motifs, all bound up with constant shifts of emotion. A...

Volume I of Liszt’s Années de pèlerinage, entitled Suisse, is based on impressions he gathered during an extended sojourn in Switzerland in 1835/36. The most important piece of the collection, first p...

Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsody no. 3 is the shortest of his series of 19 Rhapsodies published in 1853 and represents an extensive reworking of a Hungarian National Melody published already ten years befor...

Just like the third, the Fourth Hungarian Rhapsody, also issued in 1853, is based on a piano piece previously published as a Hungarian National Melody. In the course of his editing, Liszt intensified...

Unlike the first two volumes of the Années de pèlerinage, which are based on travel impressions from Switzerland and Italy, the third volume from Liszt’s late period, published in 1883, is more of a s...

In the second volume, "Italie", of the three-part "Années de pèlerinage", which was released in 1858, the great names of Italian art and poetry take centre stage. This also includes Dante with his fam...

The eighth Hungarian Rhapsody, published in 1853, treats themes that Liszt became acquainted with during his visit to Hungary in 1846: a folk song, a popular dance melody of the time and a csárdás. No...

The Hungarian Rhapsody no. 10, published in 1853, is based on a composition by Béni Egressy. At that time, the Hungarian national composer directed one of the most famous so-called gypsy bands. When L...

Out of admiration for the "Waltz King" Johann Strauss, Ravel had already planned a waltz composition in 1906, the realisation of which was hindered by other projects and the outbreak of the First Worl...

Out of admiration for the "Waltz King" Johann Strauss, Ravel had already planned a waltz composition in 1906, the realisation of which was hindered by other projects and the outbreak of the First Worl...

At last Fauré's brilliant masterpiece is available in a modern urtext edition! This vibrant set of variations was premièred in London's St James Hall on 10 December 1896 and appeared in print the foll...

Mozart is one of the pioneers of works for piano four-hands; he was undoubtedly encouraged to do so through his music-making on the harpsichord with his sister, as depicted in the famous family portra...

The 'Valses oubliées' belong to Liszt's late work, characterised by themes such as memory, sorrow and grief. They do not form a cycle but were written as separate pieces between 1881 and 1884. The tit...

At the beginning of the 1870s, Saint-Saëns showed a particular fondness for the violoncello. He completed his first cello sonata in December 1872, immediately after finishing his first cello concerto...

After the first cello sonata of 1872 (HN 1057) quickly became popular, the publisher kept urging the composition of a second sonata for this instrumentation. But it was not until March 1905, in the mi...

Just a few months after completing his Cello Sonata op. 6, Strauss composed another work for this instrument: a Romance for cello and orchestra, which remained unpublished during his lifetime. Accordi...