William Mathias: Laudi
The Welsh composer William Mathias (1934 - 1992) has balanced an abiding interest in 20th Century compositional innovations with an obvious love for traditional sounds. Although the attractiveness of his music has made him seem reactionary to some, his active promotion of such figures as Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Messiaen, Boulez, and Carter belies this simplistic evaluation. Thus, his Laudi (1973) reflects an interest in ritualistic music typical for his generation of composers, and its imaginative use of percussion instruments clearly marks it as a contemporary piece. Among his strongest 20th-century influences are those who found ways of modernizing a more traditional sound-world, such as Bartok, Hindemith, and Stravinsky; Laudi, in particular, provides a powerful echo of Stravinsky's's characteristic treatment of blocks of relatively static material.
Johann Nepomuk Hummel: Trumpet Concerto in E flat Major
Johann Nepomuk- Hummel (1778-1937) has been judged harshly by history. Whether fighting the ghosts of Mozart and Haydn or the all-too-real Beethoven, he seemed destined to fail: a prodigy who could not compete with the memory of Mozart, the unimpressive successor to Haydn at the Esterhazy court, overshadowed by his younger contemporary Beethoven in Vienna. Yet his Trumpet Concerto in E-flat (1803) reveals a good ear for the virtuosic and expressive possibilities of the relatively new keyed trumpet, with a poignant slow movement that needs no apology. Apparent tributes to Mozart and Haydn may be heard in the opening movement, to the Haffner and Hen Symphonies, respectively.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Symphony No. 7 in A Major, Op. 92
Standing alone among Beethoven's most venerated symphonies, the Seventh (1812) has defied the best efforts of those who have tried to suggest a program for the work or to honor it with a nickname. For the Third and Sixth Symphonies, we have Beethoven's own subtitles; for the Ninth we have Schiller's "Ode to Joy"; and for the Fifth we have the composer's later suggestion of fate knocking at the door. For the Seventh, we may, if we like, find some explanatory value in Schumann's villa, Berlioz's peasant dance, or Wagner's Dionysian orgy and Apotheosis of the dance. And there is much in the music to support other suggested interpretations, ranging from medieval chivalry to political revolution. But Beethoven himself rejected specific explanations of this sort for the Seventh, in favor of general and musical ones, leaving us to make whatever sense we may of the stirring horn calls and mysterious groanings of the first movement, the hypnotic beauties of the second (routinely encored in its early performances), the disturbing contrasts of the third, and the raucous, ecstatic frenzy of the finale.
--- Raymond Knapp
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