Written to celebrate the 110th Anniversary of the Joliet Township High School Orchestras of Illinois, 'Stone and Steel' is a modern concert overture by Richard Meyer that treats the listener and performer to a myriad of styles and moods. The piece begins with a heavy, ponderous theme marked 'Molto pesante,' which depicts the limestone quarries that first earned Joliet the nickname 'City of Stone' in the early 1800s. The mood soon changes and we can visualize huge barges laden down with stone, making their way through the city's large lift bridges and into the famous Illinois and Michigan Canal on their way to regional customers. With the construction of a steel mill in 1869, Joliet became known as the 'City of Steel.' Stone and steel were now shipped by both canal and railroad, and this exciting new age is represented by a modern, fast-moving theme in a bright major key. The two themes, 'stone' and 'steel,' are then further developed, and the piece culminates in a majestic, celebratory final statement of the 'steel' theme. (6:00) / Orchestre A Cordes

Dvorak's Serenade in E major for string orchestra is one of his most popular and frequently played works. It was written in the spring of 1875, when he had just experienced his first successes at the conductor's podium and had received a state arts scholarship. The score and parts were published by Bote and Bock, Berlin, in 1879. This Urtext edition is based on the composer's autograph score. It corrects mistakes found in the first edition and so, for the first time, the editor incorporates omitted passages from the autograph, marking them with Vi-de. This reconstruction makes it possible to clarify the piece's structure. The author of the Foreword, Katerina Nova, is head of the Dvorak Museum in Prague. / Violoncelle