REPRINT SERIES The Gong on the Hook and Ladder or Firemen's Parade on Main Street, is a short composition by American composer Charles Ives. This revised orchestrated version premiered in 1934 and is scored for a chamber orchestra, consisting of a flute,...

REPRINT SERIES This is the 1947 Revised Version, as scored by the composer. Petrushka is a ballet and orchestral concert work by Russian composer Igor Stravinsky. It was written for the 1911 Paris season of Sergei Diaghilev's Ballets Russes company;...

REPRINT SERIES Prokofiev wrote his Symphony No. 2 in D minor, Op. 40, in Paris in 1924-25, during what he called "nine months of frenzied toil". He characterized this symphony as a work of "iron and steel". Prokofiev modeled the symphony's structure on...

REPRINT SERIES  As admirers of Kodály are aware, the composer was well known for his work in ethnomusicology. The Peacock Variations falls into this vast realm of the composer's output, using a melody that has Hungarian and possibly Mari...

REPRINT SERIES   After he departed the Soviet Union in 1918, Sergei Prokofiev (1891 - 1953) spent a fair amount of time in the U.S. concertizing. On one such tour in 1930, the Library of Congress commissioned him to compose a string quartet; the...

The Pulcinella Suite, derived from the ballet, was written in 1922 and has no vocal parts. Pulcinella marked the beginning of Stravinsky's second phase as a composer, his neoclassical period. The suite consists of eight...

REPRINT SERIES Fountains of Rome or Fontane di Roma is a symphonic poem written by Ottorino Respighi in 1916 and first published in 1918. It is the first orchestral work in his "Roman trilogy", followed by Pines of Rome (1924) and Roman Festivals (1928)...

Respighi composed Metamorphoseon in 1930, for the fiftieth anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and it is in fact something of a concerto for orchestra. The 30-minute long work consists of a theme and twelve variations or 'modes', an allusion to...

Uirapuru is an orchestral piece with an elaborate program about the mythical Uirapuru bird in the Amazon jungle.  It's dedicated to ballet choreographer Serge Lifar. It is characteristic of the composer in blending Brazilian national inspiration...

REPRINT SERIES This Suite No.2 was composed in 1923. It was based on pieces for lute, archlute, and viol by Fabritio Caroso, Jean-Baptiste Besard, Bernardo Gianoncelli, and an anonymous composer. It also includes an aria attributed to Marin Mersenne...

REPRINT SERIES   The suite is in four movements, and lasts around 20 minutes. It is based on Prokofiev's ballet "Ala e Lolli" (Ala and Lolly).1. Invocation to Veles and Ala - barbaric and colorful music describing the Scythians' invocation of the...

REPRINT SERIES The orchestral Tanzsuite aus Klavierstücken von François Couperin, TrV 245 consists of eight movements, each one based on a selection of pieces from Couperin's Pièces de Clavecin written for the solo harpsichord over the...

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 Hindemith - Konzertmusik für Streichorchester und Blechbläser Op.50 It was one of a large group of pieces commissioned for the 50th anniversary of the Boston Symphony Orchestra by its music director, Serge Koussevitzky...

The Hungarian Pictures, also known as Hungarian Sketches, are probably Bartók's most popular orchestral transcriptions. Each of the five pieces was originally conceived for the piano. the first two, "Evening in Transylvania" and "Bear Dance," are...

Serge Koussevitzky asked whether Rachmaninoff would select a group of études-tableaux for Italian composer Ottorino Respighi to orchestrate. He agreed and selected five études from Op. 33 and Op. 39. Respighi rearranged the order of...

REPRINT SERIES Revised in 1920 and finished in 1924, Falla transformed El Amor Brujo into a one-act 'ballet pantomímico'; it is in this version that the work is best known to this day. Movements:1.    Introduccion y Escena /...

 The music is light, even at times satirical, and overflowing with popular turns and dance rhythms. (Ravel is said to have admitted to Poulenc that he envied his ability to “write his own folksongs.”)  It is in four movements:...