Mozart by Stravinsky

This is a classical opera written by Stravinsky. I wonder what Mozart would have thought of this great opera.

A Stravinsky favourite!

This is the third movement of the "Dumbarton Oaks" Concerto. The whole work deserves to be heard and I heartily recommend listening to all of it. Great stuff!

It's your deal, Igor!

Stravinsky's game of cards

I have recently discovered this masterpiece on a two disc CD with Riccardo Chailly conducting the Royal Concertgebouw. This is a work I really should have known, but sadly I have never spent a lot of time discovering the music of Stravinsky. Shameful, isn't it, that I have not spent more time listening and discovering his works? Stravinsky is one of the greatest of 20th Century originals!

Funeral music by Hindemith

Back in 1971, when I was seventeen years old, I happened to discover a recording of this glorious work by Paul Hindemith. The record on the Vanguard label also featured music by Anton Webern, Albert Roussel and Milko Kelemen. The pieces were performed by the excellent "I Solisti di Zagreb". It was an epiphany for me as all on one record I was introduced to neo-classicism and atonality at a time when I knew neither. In the case of the "Opus 5" pieces for string orchestra by Webern, these pieces have long been an eternal favourite 20th Century work which to most people, upon first hearing it, would say: "that hurts my ears"! If a young man can hear it and love it, so can you!

A French symphonic masterpiece!

A recently re-discovered masterpiece

I haven't heard the "Sinfonietta" by Albert Roussel since I first heard it at the age of seventeen! I loved it then and I still am awed by it even now. The disc that I first discovered at such a young age also had a performance of Webern's "Five pieces for Strings, opus 5". For such a young person as myself to accommodate and integrate such "difficult" music is proof that introducing "difficult" music to younger folks makes them more appreciative to new ideas and concepts in 20th
Century music.

I don't believe they would say: "that hurts my ears".