Tag Archives: Tone Poem Tuesday

The operas of Giacchino Rossini aren’t performed very much today, but they were once all the rage, and the overtures to those operas have remained mainstays of orchestral music even while the operas themselves have lapsed into some neglect. Rossini’s … Continue reading →

Time for some film music! One thing that a lot of movie music fans discover is how often it turns out that they love a particular filmscore while disliking the film for which it was written. This is an example … Continue reading →

As a composer, Leonard Bernstein is almost certainly best known for having written the score to the classic musical West Side Story (a remake of which is now being shot by Steven Spielberg, interestingly enough–at this point just about the … Continue reading →

Gustav Holst is known almost exclusively these days for The Planets and his two Suites for Military Band, but he wrote a great deal of fine and interesting music beyond his couple of war-horses. Today’s selection is one of those … Continue reading →

As I write this, it’s still Tuesday! Wow! Romanian composer George Enescu is endlessly fascinating, straddling the line between Romanticism and Modernism. He is probably the greatest composer to ever spring from Romania, and much of his work is of … Continue reading →

I don’t believe I’ve heard this work before, or even of the composer, Silvestre Revueltas of Mexico. Revueltas lived 1899 to 1940, and was not only short-lived but also a late bloomer, so his output is not large. The work … Continue reading →

Yeah, I just straight-up lost track of my days yesterday. It happens! Here’s a famous piece by Gustav Holst, probably his most famous work after The Planets. He wrote two Suites for Military Band, and both have become essential staples … Continue reading →

It’s interesting how many of the great composers push others out of the limelight, isn’t it? If not for Antonin Dvorak, likely the greatest of Czech composers, the music of Bedrich Smetana might be better known today. Dvorak’s work is … Continue reading →

Film music today: a symphonic suite comprising the music of Joe Hisaishi, written for the great Hayao Miyazaki film Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind. Hisaishi is one of my favorite composers, and this suite is representative of why.

William Grant Still, who lived from 1895 to 1978, is one of the most prominent and important African-American composers. He was prolific, writing five symphonies and eight operas in addition to an impressive array of other works. His is an … Continue reading →