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Welcome to the
COMPOSITION NOTES Page of
aMUSIClassical Directory
Our Classical Music website
for good music lovers.
 
The Strad
Magazine DescriptionThe Strad is a classical music magazine focusing on the violin, viola, cello, viol, and other stringed instruments. Each monthly issue offers reviews, news, and event information.
The Strad
Magazine DescriptionThe Strad is a classical music magazine focusing on the violin, viola, cello, viol, and other stringed instruments. Each monthly issue offers reviews, news, and event information.
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Notes on Major Compositions
listed by composer
~ M ~
- MacDowell, Edward Concerto for Piano and Orchestra, No 2 in d,
Op23
- Mahler, Gustav
Selected
Works
- Martinu Sym No 1
Martinu Sym No 2
Martinu Sym No 3
Martinu Sym No 4
Martinu Sym No 5
- Martinu Sym No 6 'Symphonic Fantasies'
- Massenet, Jules (1842 - 1912) "Thais" 'Meditation'
Was a sucessful composer of French operas. Leader of the musical society, and
honor winning student at
the Paris Conservatory where he later became a professor of music. His opera
"Thais" is set in Egypt
during the early Christian days. Thais is a beautiful dancing courtesan. Today
we would call her a paid escort. The scenario is about a monk called Athanael
who trys to convert Thais but he falls in love with her. Thais believing in a
happy hereafter, dies... leaving a grief-
stricken monk. Massenet's celebrated orchestral 'Meditation' or intermezzo was
placed between two scenes providing a
dramatic link in the opera.
- Massenet "Manon"
His best known opera, like 'Thais', is about the rescue and reform of a
courtesan.
In this one Manon dies a horrible death. The opera was FP at Opera-Comique in
Paris, 1884. It
established Massenet as the most popular opera composer of his time.
- Mendelssohn, Felix Selected
Works
- Milhaud - Suite Francaise. It was commissioned by the Leeds
Publishing Company for high
school band performance. It uses melodies from various regions of France.
- Milhaud, Darius 'Suite provencale'
- Monteverdi 'Vespers'
The service of Vespers is one of the most intimate offices of the Catholic
Church and provided the composers of St. Marks with something special for
the major feast days. Monteverdi's setting to the 121st Psalm is the
catalist for five voices with an instrumental accmpaniment.
- Moussorgsky, Modest 'A Night On Bald Mountain'
- Moussorgsky 'Chorus of the Priestesses'
From his first opera 'Salammbo' (sah lam BOH') in Act Four. The chorus was
orchestrated
by N. Rimsky-Korsakov three years after Moussorgsky's death in 1881 in St.
Petersburg.
- Moussorgsky 'Pictures at an Exhibitiion'
Modeste Moussorgsky wrote his 'Picture at an Exhibition' as a suite for
the piano. Moussorgsky was inspired by a posthumous exhibition of
paintings by his close friend, Victor Hartmann. The exhibition was
in St. Petersburg in 1874. As Moussorgsky walked about the
exhibition, he gathered his ideas. The work begins with a
prominade or a walk, passes through a series of descriptive
sections including the one called 'the Ballet of the Unhatched
Chickens' and ends with the impressive finale called 'The Great
gate at Kiev'. The work is most commonly heard in it's orchestral
form. Many transcriptions have been made but the one most frequently heard
on radio and in the concert halls today is by Maurice Ravel. He
orchestrated the work on a commission from the Boston Symphony conductor
Serge Koussevitsky. In this piece is a description of the Hartman design for a
clock.
'A Hut on Fowl's legs'. (Baba Yaga).
Named after a wicked witch in a Russian legend who lives in a trashy hut built
on giant chicken legs.
- Moussorgsky 'Prelude to Khovanshchina'
- Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus
Selected
Works
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