Scores for Orchestra

Peter Ilyitch Tchaikovsky (1840-1893) wrote the 3-act opera MAZEPPA between 1881-1883. With a libretto by Victor Burenin, based on Pushkin's poem Poltava, the opera takes the late 17th century histori...

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) wrote the short orchestral piece titled Sevillaña (Scène Espagnole), Op. 7 in 1884 when the composer was twenty-six. 1884 was a time of personal difficulty for Elgar as his en...

WERTHER, an opera in four acts by Jules Massenet (1842-1912), found its inspiration in a novel by Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther, which in turn based its story on the actual suicide of a young m...

AIDA, with music by Giuseppe Verdi (1813-1901) and a libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, is a staple of the operatic repertoire. The story, set in the Old Kingdom of Egypt, tells of tragic love challenge...

Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) wrote Lyric Pieces as a collection of 66 short works for piano. Published in ten volumes, Book VIII, Op. 65, contains six pieces, which includes "Bryllupsdag på Troldhaugen" (...

NABUCCO, a retelling of the biblical story of Jewish exile under the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar, was Giuseppe Verdi's (1813-1901) first major operatic success, and was written reluctantly, followi...

While Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847) modestly refers to Hear My Prayer (Hör' mein Bitten) in G Major, WoO 15, as "a trifle," it is among his most popular works for chorus. On the autograph score, he in...

Composed by Vincenzo Bellini (1801-1835) in 1830, the two-act opera I Capuletti e i Montecchi (The Capulets and the Mantagues) stands as one of only two successful opera adaptations of Shakespeare's R...

Premiering on May 22, 1813, at the Teatro San Benedetto in Venice, L'italiana in Algeri (The Italian Girl in Algiers) by Gioachino Rossini (1792-1868) was a success, with subsequent performances in Vi...

Edward Elgar's (1857-1934) Symphony No. 1 in A-flat, Op. 55 was completed in 1908, although it was a work about a decade in the making. Originally proposed as early as 1898 as a programmatic work base...

Originally written for piano four hands in 1879, Hungarian Dances (WoO 1), a set of 21 lively dance tunes mostly based on Hungarian themes, are among Johannes Brahms' (1833-1897) most popular works to...

The first performance of I Vespri Siciliani (The Sicilian Vespers), a five-act opera by Guiseppe Verdi (1813-1901), took place at the Paris Opera on June 13, 1855, under the direction of Narcisse Gira...

Manon Lescaut, the third opera and first notable success of Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924), took shape between 1889 and 1892. Five different writers worked on its libretto. The Teatro Regio in Turin saw...

The ROMANCE in F minor, Op. 11 (B. 39) was composed by Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) in 1877, reworked from the Andantino movement of his 1873 STRING QUARTET NO. 5 in F minor, a work written before he wa...

Cellist and composer David Popper published the CELLO CONCERTO No. 5 in C major, Hob. VIIb:5, in 1899 as a completion of stetches supposedly made by Franz Joseph Haydn (1732-1809). Due to more recent...

The ballet THE SEASONS (LES SAISONS), Op. 67 was composed by Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) for famous choreographer Marius Petipa in 1899. Originally intended to be written by Glazunov's friend Ricca...

The ballet THE SEASONS (LES SAISONS), Op. 67 was composed by Alexander Glazunov (1865-1936) for famous choreographer Marius Petipa in 1899. Originally intended to be written by Glazunov's friend Ricca...

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) composed SONGS TO POEMS BY RUECKERT (SONGS AFTER RÜCKERT; RÜCKERT-LIEDER) between 1901 and 1902. They were not conceived of as a cycle, with each song only connected by the p...

Gustav Mahler (1860-1911) began composing the songs of DES KNABEN WUNDERHORN (THE BOY'S MAGIC HORN) in 1892, finishing in 1901. Comprised of 15 songs total by the end, each sets folktale texts, as pub...

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) composed FOUR CHARACTERISTIC WALTZES, Op. 22 in 1899. Full of wonderful orchestral colors and rhythmic vitality, each of the four waltzes showcases varied scenes. M...

While librettist W.S. Gilbert (1836-1911) and composer Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) had worked previously in 1871-72 to write Thespis, a work for the Christmas season, the 1875 one-act comic opera Tria...

HOLOUBEK (THE WILD DOVE), Op. 110/B. 198, is an orchestra poem composed by Antonín Dvorák (1841-1904) in 1896. Revised in January of the next year, it tells the story of a woman who poisons her husban...

In 1896, soon after his return from America to his Bohemian homeland, Antonín Dvorák wrote a set of four orchestral pieces based on Karel Jaromír Erben's collection of poetry A BOUQUET OF FOLK LEGENDS...

Gianni Schicchi is a one-act comic opera by Giacomo Puccini (1858-1924). The final and most popular opera in a trio known as Il trittico (The Triptych), each one dealing with the concealment of a deat...

In 1787, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) succeeded Christoph Gluck as the chamber composer for Joseph II. One of his principal tasks was to write music for the dances and balls that took place in...