Igor Stravinsky (1882—1971)
Pulcinella
suite for a small orchestra from music to the ballet based on subjects, fragments and pieces by Giovanni Battista Pergolesi
edition of 1949

Arnold Schoenberg is one of the most influential Austrian composers, teachers and music theorists of the first half of the 20th century. As a founder of the twelve-tone serialism, Schoenberg decisively widened expressive opportunities breaking a traditional counter point and opening borders between tones. His Five Orchestral Pieces, monodrama Erwartung, cycle Pierrot lunaire and other compositions not only reflect originality of the author’s technics but also resonate with dramatic transformations of that time’s culture and society.  

Verklärte Nacht is an instrumental piece by Schoenberg that was initially written as a string sextet in 1899. The composer took an eponymous poem by Richard Dehmel as a source of inspiration and brought keen expressive impulse to the compact romantic narrative. This work became the first one in Schoenberg’s career to cause resonant public acclaim.

—

Richard Strauss is one of the leading representatives of late romantic German music. Famous for his Salome and Rosenkavalier operas as well as for Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche and Also sprach Zarathustra symphonic poems, Strauss followed Wagner’s and Brahms’s heritage though in a new expressionistic way. His more mature compositions are of more balanced neoclassicism. 

Concerto for oboi and orchestra in D major is the master’s late score written in 1945 soon after Germany had signed the Surrender. Looking back to the genre’s examples by Haydn and Mozart, Strauss continued the classical tradition and gave a soloist numerous opportunities for virtuoso self-expression. 

—

Igor Stravinsky is outstanding Russian composer who converted his sophisticated genius to dramatic musicality. Along with artists close to Sergei Diaghilev he not only put Ballets Russes on the top of European fashion but also helped their transformation to a cultural phenomenon of epochal scale and significance.From the one side, Stravinsky managed to turn over the audience’s tastes in Sacre du printemps and Petrouchka and, from another side, to have an equal dialog with great predecessors in Oedipus rex and Baiser de la fée.

Pulcinella is a suite from the ballet of the same name written in 1919—1920 for Sergei Diaghilev’s troupe. As Stravinsky was inspired by Italian folk theatre, scores by Pergolesi and his contemporaries, he admitted to have his ‘first deliberate raid to the past’.