Tag Archives: Saturday Symphony

Apologies for missing this feature last week! Last Saturday was a really hectic day that didn’t afford me a real chance to sit down and go Whew! until rather late, at which point I was still facing my daily writing … Continue reading →

Bruckner’s Eighth Symphony (in C minor) is an enormous work, comprising nearly ninety minutes of music. The work is scored for enormous orchestra: The 1887 version requires an instrumentation of three each of the following woodwind: flutes (the third doubling … Continue reading →

Another work by Anton Bruckner, this time his Symphony No. 7 in E major. After the 4th, the 7th might be the most familiar of Bruckner’s symphonies. It is the most Wagnerian in sound, right down to his use of … Continue reading →

You know how sometimes you want to listen to a piece of music that is light and airy, that flits around like the will o’ the wisp, that is imbued with bright charm and delicate wit? Well, forget all that, … Continue reading →

A symphony today by an American woman. In the late 19th century, the American musical tradition was pretty much an extension of the European musical tradition, which is generally why American composers of that period aren’t generally held in the … Continue reading →

All right, we got a barn-burner here. Seriously, you’ll be needing good speakers and you’ll be wanting to turn them UP, especially for the last movement. Today it’s the Symphony No. 3 in C minor by Camille Saint-Saens, better known … Continue reading →

Antonin Dvorak spent several years in the 1890s in the United States, including a time in a community of Czech immigrants in, of all places, Spillville, Iowa. I once drove through Spillville, and it’s tiny — less than 500 people … Continue reading →

First off, it’s been brought to my attention that sometimes there are ads on the symphony videos that I use, and that sometimes the ads are not appropriate, over and above their annoying presence to begin with. The problem is … Continue reading →

Time for the great Czech master, Antonin Dvorak. Dvorak wrote nine symphonies, of which I’m going to focus on the last three, or at least as far as we know are the last three. The numbering of Dvorak’s symphonies is … Continue reading →