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Welcome to the
COMPOSITION NOTES Page of
aMUSIClassical Directory
Our Classical Music website
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Notes on Major Compositions
listed by composer
~ H ~
- Handel, G. F.
- Handel Alexander Balus
Opera
- Handel 'Concerto Grosso' Op 3 No 6
Published in 1734, but the music originated in England around 1715 after
he settled in London. It reflects the Italian influence of Corelli after
returning from Italy in the early 1730's.
These concerti were written in the short span between September 29th
through October 30th 1733. His publisher promoted them by adverytising in
newspapers which led to major sheet music sales.
- Handel 'Largo' from Xerxes
From one of the many Handel operas, this air is from scene 1 act 1 of
'Xerxes'. It is known independently as the 'largo'.
- Handel Messiah
A baroque work from 1740 with about 45 choruses, solos, duets and some instrumental interludes. As an operal composer, Handel was aware of dramatic sequence and this work was arranged for variety and drama.
- Handel Recorder Sonata in
g
Most of Handel's recorder sonatas were published around 1720. The recorder
sonata in g minor, op 1 No 2 dates from this period.
- Handel Royal
Fireworks
Music intended for a celebration. He wrote the Royal Fireworks for
celebration of a peace treaty and to pay tribute to King George the
second. At the FP the fireworks blew up setting fire to the staging area and everyone was forced to flee. Composed in 1749 this baroque suite was scored for only winds and percussion but is heard today with strings.
- Handel Violin Concerto in Bb
Dates from 1710 and was influenced by Italian composer Guiseppi Torelli.
- Handel Water
Music
Music composed in 1717. A collection of three suites composed to
accompany King George I, and royal procession along the Thames. (temz)
On first hearing, on the evening of July 17, 1717, the King had the
music repeated over a few times.
Actually the musicians rode on another nearby barge. Their destination was
'White Hall', the Celsea Villa of Lord Ranelaugh, for dinner, then return. This baroque suite is outdoor entertainment music for the king and his guests with the power of winds and horns thus no strings.
- Hanson, Howard Lament for
Beowulf
- Hanson, Howard
Sym No2 - Romantic
Until his death in 1981 he spent his career
as a composer and director of the Eastman School of Music in Rochester NY.
He was 28 when Kodak camera inventor George Eastman chose him to head the
school. Perhaps Hanson's most celebrated work is this second symphony. Op
80. It was composed in 1930 for the 50th anniversary of the Boston
Symphony.
- Harris, Roy 'Symphony No. 1'
- Harris, Roy 'Symphony No. 2'
- Harris, Roy 'Symphony No. 3'
- Haydn, Franz Joseph
- Herbert A Suite of
Serenades
Written for Paul Whiteman in May of 1924 just before Herbert's death. The
work was FP by the PW orchestra just hours after he died. The suite of
four serenades based on themes of Spain, China, Cuba and The Orient.
- Herold Zampa Overture
Louis Joseph Ferdinand Herold wrote about a dozen operas in his lifetime
which spanned the years 1791 to 1833. 'The Field of Honor' of 1832 was the
only successful one. Today only one overture remains. The overture to
Zampa, a tone poem about the Mediteranean pirate 'Zampa' sets the
"seascape" for the excitement of a pirate's life.
- Hindemith, Paul 'Concerto Music for Strings and Brass' Op 50
- Hindemith, Concerto for Violin and Orchestra
- Hindemith Mathis
Der Mahler Symphony
- Hindemith, Nobilissima Visione, Orchestral Suite
- Hindemith, Symphonic Metamorphosis on Themes of Carl maria Von
Weber
Concieved as a ballet score for Leonid Massine, but never developed.
Hindemith heard that the decor for the production was to be done by
Salvadore Dali and Hindemith had premonitions of it being a failure. The
music is an arrangement of material for to Weber works, piano duets Op 60
and his music for Gozzi's Turandot.
- Holst, Gustav Choral Symphony
Op.41 Gustav Holst wrote his Choral Sym to texts by Keats for the Leeds
Festival of 1923. It was FP on Oct 7 1925 at the Leeds Town Hall. Albert
Coates cond. The London SO. It was biwildering to most that heard it. It
was pub in the 1970's after a resurgence in Holst's popularity no doubt from his popular orchestral work The Planets. There was
a
recording available from ANGEL (S-37030) made in 1974 by the London
Philharmonic Orch and Chorus with Soprano Felicity Palmer, Sir Adrian
Boult conducting. (The Poems of John Keats set to the music of Gustav
Holst).
- Holst Egdon Heath
- Holst Hammersmith Prelude and
Scherzo
Wind Band's first great champion amoung first rank composers was Gustav
Holst. He was commissioned in 1930 to write a work for the BBC's military
band. The expected FP never came, as Holst died in 1934 never hearing the
work performed. A recording of the Holst work was performed for a 1959
magnetic film recording, in stereo for Mercury Records (CD# 432 009-2)
C2159.
- Holst The
Planets
The popularity of Holst's "Planets" is unmistakable: it's one of the most-played works at concert halls, and its influence on contemporary soundtrack composers is profound. Check out Amazon.com's Get Started In feature to get background information and an audio tour of Holst's masterpiece.
"The Planets
No... 'Pluto' was not depicted in the work. The score was never meant to
correlate with astronomical bodies at all. The link was with astrology and
Pluto never figured in astrological lore.
A bit about Holst himself, of Swedish ancestry English composer and teacher Gustav Holst was born in
Cheltenham in 1874. He died in
London in 1934 after spending most of his life teaching at the Morley
School and St.Paul's Girls School. The bulk of his music is composed of
Choral arrangements
but he is best known for his orchestral suite The Planets.
This large orchestral work with female chorus in the final movement, was written
between 1914 and 1917 long before Hollywood composers made cliches of
Holst's ideas. The seven sections bear descriptive titles such as Mars,
The Bringer of War; Venus, the bringer of peace; Mercury, the winged
messenger and Neptune, the Mystic which features the chorus of female voices.
Jupiter, Venus and Mars were completed by the end of 1914. Saturn, Uranus
and Neptune followed in 1915...and Mercury in 1916. All but neptune were
written for two pianos. The orchestration came in 1917 by Nora Day and
Vally Lasher fellow faculty members at St Paul's School under Holst. It is said that during rehearsals custodial workers stopped their cleaning of the hall...mesmerized by the music they were hearing. The
FP was a private one by the London SO on Sep 28, 1918. By 1921, after several
performances Holst became immediatly known all over the world, but sadly, he could not
produce anything else as popular. This challenged him for the rest of his
life.
- Holst St.Paul's Suite
This work composed while
teaching at the St. Paul girl's school in London where he worked from 1905 until
his death in 1934. The piece gives each member something significant to perform.
- Honegger, Arthur Pacific 231
- Honegger, Symphony No 2, for String Orchestra
- Hovhaness, Alan Armenian Rhapsody No 1 Op 45.
Composed in April of 1944 and FP in Boston in June... the music is based
on Armenian Mountain village tunes.
- Hovhaness Mysterious Mountain
(2nd Symphony)
Conductor Leopold Stokowsky commissioned Alan Hovhaness to write
Mysterious Mountain for the Houston Symphony in October of 1955. In his
music Hovhaness says he imagined man's attempt to know God. Mountains, he
said, seem like symbols of a meeting place between the mundane and the
spiritual worlds. (Op 132)
- Hummel Concerto for Trumpet
in E flat. FP On New Years Day in 1804 at the Court of Esterhazy.
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