REPRINT SERIES Two short poems by the Russian symbolist poet Konstantin Balmont are set here. In both songs can be heard the combination of ‘diatonic’ and ‘octatonic’ procedures typical of Stravinsky at this time, which he...

The Quatre poèmes de Max Jacob, composed in 1921, show Poulenc at his most avant-garde. To the already edgy ensemble of flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and trumpet Poulenc adds lines of dissonant counterpoint punctuated by knotty chords, to the...

REPRINT SERIES Perséphone (Persephone) is a musical work (mélodrame) for female narrator, tenor solo, mixed chorus, children's chorus, dancers and orchestra with music by Igor Stravinsky and a libretto by André Gide.It was first...

REPRINT SERIES Tilimbom is the first movement of "3 Histoires pour Enfants" by Igor Stravinsky. First published for medium voice and piano, the composer later orchestrated it for Voice and Orchestra in 1954.

Poulenc's cantata Le Bal Masqué (for Baritone or Mezzo-Soprano and Chamber Orchestra) is written to texts by the poet Max Jacob, whose work can be seen as closely approaching surrealism; it dates from 1932. The instrumentation is strongly...

REPRINT SERIES The Gloria by Francis Poulenc, FP 177, scored for soprano solo, large orchestra, and chorus, is a setting of the Gloria text from the mass ordinary. One of Poulenc's most celebrated works, it was commissioned by the Koussevitsky...

In 1919 the premiere of Le Bestiaire on poems by Guillaume Apollinaire (with Suzanne Peignot, friend and first interpreter of the composer’s mélodies). 6 movements: I. Le dromadaire II. Le chèvre du Thibet III. La sauterelle IV...

REPRINT SERIES Litanies à la Vierge noire (French pronunciation: ​[litani a la vjɛʁʒ nwɑʁ]; "Litany to the Black Virgin"), FP 82, is a piece of sacred music composed by Francis Poulenc in 1936 for a three-part choir of women (or children) and...

The suite begins where the opera starts, famously, with the bold, erotic horn music that is "Der Rosenkavalier’s" calling card and always a welcome sound to opera lovers. The suite begins with the opera's orchestral prelude, depicting the night of...

REPRINT SERIES L'enfant et les sortilèges: Fantaisie lyrique en deux parties (The Child and the Spells: A Lyric Fantasy in Two Parts) is an opera in one act, with music by Maurice Ravel to a libretto by Colette. It is Ravel's second opera, his...

Gliere's Concerto for Coloratura Soprano and Orchestra in F minor Op.82 , composed in 1943, is an innovative work that features the soprano as the main instrument, but without words. Divided in two movements, the first Andante is filled with melancholy...

Vocalise, Op. 34, No. 14 is a song by Sergei Rachmaninoff, published in 1912 as the last of his Fourteen Songs, Op. 34. Originally written for voice (soprano or tenor) with piano accompaniment, it contains no words, but is sung using any one vowel (of...

Franz Schubert composed his Lied, "Der Erlkönig" (also known as "Le Roi des Aulnes"), for solo voice and piano in 1815, setting text from the Goethe poem.  It was later orchestrated by Hector Berlioz. The four characters in the song —...