Sibelius, Britten, Barber & Part: Romanza - Music for Strings - CD

This album features two compositionsby Jean Sibelius from differentmoments in the Finnish musician's life.The Impromptu Op.5 for stringensemble is an early work from 1894, inwhich Sibelius uses some thematicmaterials from his solo pianoimpromptus Nos. 5 and 6 from the Op.5set. The Romance in C Op.42 (1903) wascomposed during a difficult phase in thecomposer's life caused by excessivealcohol consumption, which promptedhim to leave Helsinki and move with hiswife near to Lake Tuusula, where hecould dedicate himself to compositionfar from the temptations of the Finnishcapital. The piece is divided into shortsections in which the melodic ideasarise from fragments of the octatonic,or diminished, scale of alternatingwhole and half steps supported bydissonant harmonies that add furthertonal instability.Samuel Barber's typically inspiredmelodic vein emerges from the verybeginning in his Serenade Op.1 for StringQuartet or String Orchestra, dating from 1928.Featuring chromaticism's and dissonantpassages, a duality is established between afirst, rhythmic and impetuous thematic ideaand a lyrical melody. The final movementbrings greater serenity and joy through thechoice of a major mode and the adoption of agraceful and leaping theme whose fragmentspass in counterpoint between one voice andanother.When Benjamin Britten composed his SimpleSymphony Op.4 he was just 20 years old, andhe describes the idea in an introduction to thescore: 'This "Simple Symphony" is entirelybased on material from works which thecomposer wrote between the ages of nineand twelve [.]. Although the development ofthese themes is in many places quite new,there are large stretches of the work whichare taken bodily from the early pieces - savefor the re-scoring for strings'. In effect, Brittenextrapolates eight themes from his juvenilecompositional production, associates two ofthem with each movement and creates astructural mix between the four movements ofa Classical symphony, the dances of theBaroque suite and popular folklore.Da pacem Domine is a Gregorian style piececomposed by Arvo Pärt in 2004 tocommemorate the victims of the Madridterrorist attacks on trains, which killed 192people. Pärt first composed a version for fourvoices on the text of a Latin prayer. Thatatmosphere of contemplation is preserved inhis subsequent edition for chamber orchestra.The modal composition, in D Dorian, conveysthe feeling of a search for calmness, a requestfrom man to God for peace in the wake of sucha tragedy. Scattered appearances of B flat andthe leading tone (C sharp) mitigate and add apiquancy to the modal atmosphere.