SKU: BT.EMBZ627

Gyula Dávid (1913-1977) was one of the most important members of the generation of Hungarian composers who followed Bartók and Kodály. His ?uvre includes stage, orchestral, oratorial, chamber, and solo instrumental works. Although he rarely quoted folk material directly in his music, folksong, popular music and the spirit of the Hungarian musical tradition permeates his works. In the last two decades of his life he wrote atonal and twelve-tone compositions. With his Wind Quintet (composed 1949) he created a genre which plays an important role in the new Hungarian music. Gyula Dávid studied composition with Albert Siklós and Zoltán Kodály at the Academy of Music in Budapest,graduating in 1938. Between 1938 and 1945 he worked in several orchestras as viola player. From 1945 to 1949 he was conductor at Hungarian National Theatre, than he became leader of the Ensemble of the Hungarian Army. From 1961 to his retirement he was professor at the Teacher Training Faculty of the Academy of Music in Budapest. Between 1951 and 1960 he taught wind chamber music, music theory and wind orchestration at the Academy of Music. He was one of the founders of the Hungarian Artists' Union. He was awarded the Erkel Prize (1952, 1955) and the Kossuth Prize (1957).

SKU: BO.B.3260

ISBN 9788480207584.

English comments:
Empuries is the result of the interest Ruera showed throughout his life for the culture and music of ancient Greece. As he himself writes in the introduction to the composition: The motives behind this work were inspired by contemplating and analysing the melos of ancient Greece. The few melodies that have been discovered from those far-off times inspired the composer of Empuries to create this work, conceived with the Greek modal system in mind, and adapted to modern instruments and tastes. The tetrachord and pentachords of these forms are the very bases of this work. The descending drift of the cadence, the harmonic priority of the upper and lower notes of the tetrachords and the displacement of these chords to different acoustic levels, make it impossible to specify the classic concept of a set tonality which, within the improvised musical working of the piece, leads to a naturally intertonal or atonal piece of music. Empuries came to light in 1971, when it won group A of the Ciutat de Barcelona prize. But one must, in fact, go back to the 1930s to find its true origins. Ruera made his first foray into the theme of ancient Greece with the sardana, Empuries, la grega, with which he won first prize in the Jocs Florals in Girona, in 1931. Shortly afterwards, he wrote a piece of organ music entitled Bucolics, in the Greek modal style, which was destroyed during the Spanish civil war. Ruera continued to work on the theme and in 1936 he presented his work Tres moviments simfonics, for a big band, inspired by the ancient Greek modes, at the XIV International Festival of the ISCM held in Barcelona. The work was chosen to debut in the festival's opening concert on 19 April 1936 at Palacio de Bellas Artes in Barcelona. In 1959, Ruera won the Pau Casals Prize at the Jocs Florals de la Llengua Catalana, held at the Sorbonne in Paris, for his work, Empuries: poema per a cobla i orquestra, which would later become the fourth movement of Empuries. Nine years later, in 1968, Barcelona City Orchestra, conducted by Antoni Ros Marba, gave the first ever performance of the symphonic poem Pastoral, written to be the first movement of Empuries, in Granollers. The final step was when he finally completed the work, won the Ciutat de Barcelona prize, opened in Granollers on 2 May 1976 and recorded it for the Columbia de Barcelona label in 1977. Anna Maria Piera

Comentarios del Espanol:
La obra Empuries es fruto del interes que el maestro Ruera demostro a lo largo de su vida por la cultura y la musica de la antigua Grecia. Como el mismo escribe en la cabecera de la composicion: Los motivos generadores de esta obra estan inspirados en la contemplacion y en el analisis del melos de la antigua Grecia. Las pocas melodias que hasta el momento se han podido descubrir de aquellos tiempos remotos sugieren al autor de Empuries la realizacion de esta obra, concebida pensando en el sistema modal griego, adaptado a los instrumentos y gustos modernos. Los tetracordes y pentacordes de dichas modalidades son las celulas en las que se basa la obra. El sentido descendiente de la cadencia, la prioridad armonica de la notas extremas de los tetracordes y el desplazamiento de estos acordes a varias alturas acusticas, hacen que no sea posible precisar el clasico concepto de una tonalidad determinada y que lleven, dentro del funcionamiento contrapuntistico, a una musica naturalmente intertonal o atonal. Empuries vio la luz en el ano 1971, ganando el Premio Ciutat de Barcelona, grupo A, pero en realidad tenemos que retroceder hasta los anos 30 para encontrar sus verdaderos origenes. La primera incursion en el tema de la antigua Gracia la hizo con la sardana Empuries, la grega, con la que gano el primer premio en los Jocs Florals de Gerona del ano 1931. Poco despues escribio una pieza para organo titulada Bucolics, en el estilo modal griego, que fue destruida durante la Guerra Civil espanola. Ruera continuo trabajando en el tema y en el ano 1936 presento su obra Tres moviments simfonics, en version para gran banda, inspirada en las antiguas modalidades griegas, en el XIV Festival Internacional de la SIMC que se celebro en Barcelona. La obra fue escogida para ser estrenada en el concierto inaugural de dicho festival, el 19 de abril de 1936, en el Palacio de Bellas Artes de Barcelona. En el 1959, Ruera gano el Premio Pau Casals en los Jocs Florals de la Llengua Catalana celebrados en la Sorbona de Paris con la obra Empuries: poema per a cobla i orquestra, que sera con el paso del tiempo el cuarto movimiento de Empuries. Nueve anos mas tarde, en 1968, la Orquestra Ciutat de Barcelona, bajo la direccion de Antoni Ros Marba, interpreto en Granollers la primera audicion del poema sinfonico Pastoral, pensado como primer movimiento de Empuries. El ultimo eslabon fue terminar definitivamente la obra, ganar el Premio Ciutat de Barcelona, estrenarla en Granollers el 2 de mayo de 1976 y grabarla para la casa discografica Columbia de Barcelona, en 1977.

SKU: HL.49041940

ISBN 9783795782832. German.

St. Petersburg - Paris - Schweizer Exil - Frankreich - USA, dies sind die Stationen eines langen Komponistenlebens, das die Musikgeschichte um eine Vielzahl von Werken unterschiedlichster Stilistik bereichert hat. Igor Strawinksys weltmannisches OEuvre hat die Palette nahezu aller Gattungen erweitert: von der Sonate bis zum Solokonzert, vom Lied bis zur Oper, von der Ballettmusik bis zur Sinfonie... Ebenso facettenreich fallt die Aufzahlung der unterschiedlichen kompositorischen Schreibarten aus, die Strawinsky im Laufe seines Schaffens beherrscht hat: vom durch seinen Lehrer Rimskij-Korsakow beeinflussten Stil der ersten Jahre zur kubistischen Komposition beispielsweise des skandalumwitterten Sacre du printemps, vom Neoklassizismus der Pulcinella bis zu den zwolftonig komponierten Movements - bis hin zu den Ausflugen in den Jazz. Orientierungslosigkeit bzw. stilistische Uneinheitlichkeit gehorten denn auch zu den Vorurteilen, denen sich Strawinsky gegenubergestellt sah. Solchen Vorurteilen tritt Wolfgang Burde in diesem Buch entgegen und verdeutlicht, dass der Komponist niemals a la mode oder a la maniere geschrieben hat, sondern die Neuentdeckung kompositorischer Verfahrensweisen oder auch bestimmter Form-Modelle stets in den Zusammenhang seiner personlichen Denkweise integriert.

SKU: HL.48025367

UPC: 196288194286.

Simon Laks (1901-1983), who moved from Warsaw to Paris in 1926 at the age of 25, belonged to the large group of composers from Central and Eastern European countries who went down in 20th-century music history as the “École de Paris”. Slavic temperament amalgamated in their music with French esprit, the folklore of their native countries combined with the stylistic elements of neoclassicism and jazz typical of the time. As a member of the “Association of Young Polish Musicians”, Laks quickly made his way into French musical life. However, his career was ended with the beginning of World War 2 due to the collaboration of the Vichy government with Nazi Germany. Internment in 1941 was followed by deportation to Auschwitz in 1942. Laks survived the Shoah as a member and later leader of a camp band in Birkenau, which he testified to in his moving book Music in Auschwitz. After the traumatic experiences, Laks did not return to regular compositional activity until the 1960s, producing an opera, songs, and chamber music works, some of which were awarded important composition prizes. At the peak of this optimistic creative phase, he composed incidental music for Peretz Hirschbein's famous Yiddish comedy Dem Schmids Techter (The Blacksmith's Daughters), which premiered in New York in 1918, for a new production of the play at the Théâtre de'l’Entrepôt in Paris. Along with Prokofiev's Overture on Hebrew Themes and Shostakovich's cycle From Yiddish (Jewish) Folk Poetry, it is one of the most significant 20th-century explorations of art music with Jewish folklore – homage to a culture irreparably destroyed. From the original score, Holger Groschopp compiled two suites, for violoncello and piano and piano solo, that capture the essence of Lak's enchanting drama music. The premiere recording of the suites with Holger Groschopp and Adele Bitter was awarded the Opus Klassik 2023 in the category Editorial Achievement of the Year.