Kalmus Study Score Series

Originally intended for solo violin and orchestra, Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908) later determined that the five Spanish folk melodies used in each of the movements of his Capriccio Espagnol woul...

Written between 1914 and 1917, Gustav Holst was initially inspired to compose THE PLANETS based on a conversation he had about astrology while on holiday in Spain with some friends in 1913. Intrigued...

In October of 1898, Edward Elgar returned home after a long day of teaching, ate dinner, then sat down at the piano to doodle on the keys. Elgar described what followed: "In a little while, sooth...

Originally written as a suite for solo piano, Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) later orchestrated four movements from Le Tombeau de Couperin in 1919 (Prélude, Forlane, Menuet, and Rigaudon). This orchestral...

Camille Saint-Saëns' (1835-1921) opera SAMSON ET DALILA, Op. 47 tells the biblical story of Delilah's betrayal of Samson. Originally conceived as an oratorio due to Saint-Saëns' admiration of such wor...

Ravel's longest work at almost an hour, the complete one-act ballet Daphnis et Chloe was described by the composer as a "symphonie choregraphique" (choreographic symphony). Ravel began the work, a rom...

Maurice Ravel's (1875-1937) Boléro, M. 81/ IMR 4, is a piece that grew out of an orchestration exercise based on a rhythm common in the title Spanish dance. Today, it's usually performed as an orchest...

Left unfinished at the time of his death, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (1756-1791) REQUIEM MASS in D minor, K. 626 remains among the composer's most recognizable works and is a major part of the choral r...

Written by Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) in 1934, this set of variations for piano solo and orchestra on Niccolò Paganini's Caprice No. 24 for solo violin is much like a concerto, though it consists...

Symphonic Dances, Op. 45, is Sergei Rachmaninoff's (1873-1943) final score, composed in 1940. The only work he composed wholly in the United States, to which he fled when he saw the coming world war,...

Spanish violin virtuoso and composer Pablo de Sarasate (1844-1908) was a child prodigy raised in a musical family. Following an education at the Paris Conservatoire, which he entered at the age of twe...

Georg Phillipp Telemann (1681-1767), among the most prolific composers with 900 or so works, is also notable for having written the first concerto for the viola. Written in four movements rather than...

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's (1756-1791) completed his three-movement Concerto for Clarinet in A, K. 622 on a few weeks before his death in 1791, and it is considered his last great completed work. It wa...

Between 1917 and 1931, Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936) transcribed three orchestral suites from original pieces written for lute between the 16th and 18th centuries. The first suite, written in 1917, in...

While the original ballet, the story of Prince Siegfried's love for the Swan Queen, enchanted by the evil magician Rotbart to turn into a swan everyday, more or less succeeded at its 1877, Moscow prem...

The Sultan Schariar, convinced of the falseness and faithlessness of women, vowed to kill each of his wives after their bridal night. The Sultana Scheherazade, however, saved her life by interested th...

This charming work in four movements was requested of Charles Gounod by a Parisian wind ensemble called Societe de Musique Pout Instruments a Vent, led by famed flautist Paul Taffanel. Written for flu...

Originally written in 1899 by Maurice Ravel (1875-1937) for solo piano, and later orchestrated by the composer, PAVANE POUR UNE INFANTE DÉFUNTE (PAVANE FOR A DEAD PRINCESS) remains one of the enduring...

Má vlast (My Fatherland or My Country) is a collection of six symphonic poems composed by Bedrich Smetana (1824-1884) between 1874 and 1879. Conceived as individual works, though commonly presented as...

In 1901, American saxophonist Elise Hall commissioned works from numerous composers for her instrument, and among those composers was Claude Debussy (1862-1918). While Debussy took the money at the ti...

The idea for TOTENTANZ, S. 126 (Dance of the Dead) was conceived by Franz Liszt (1811-1886) in 1838. Two versions were to follow, the first completed in 1853, and the second version finished in 1864....

Franz Liszt (1811-1886) started work on his Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 2 in A major, S. 125, in 1839 and 1840. Putting it through a series of revisions, he dedicated the concerto to his stud...

Modest Mussorgsky (1839-1881) composed Pictures at an Exhibition for solo piano as a musical depiction of a tour through an exhibition of paintings by his late friend Viktor Hartman. The most commonly...

Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809) composed his CONCERTO FOR TRUMPET in E-flat, Hob.VIIe: 1 for the trumpet virtuoso Anton Weidinger. Weidinger was dissatisfied with the limited range of the "natural trum...

Max Bruch (1838-1920) composed his VIOLIN CONCERTO No. 1 in G minor, Op. 26 in 1866, premiering on April 24, 1866, by Otto von Königslow on violin, with Max Bruch conducting. Following, the violin vir...