LOL -- this is a first! I selected a piece to listen to this week -- a piece I've never heard before: Moritz Moszkowski's Piano Concerto in E Major.
Last week I listened to and rated Victor Kosenko's piano concerto -- a work by the 8th name on the list -- and I loved it. I figured that I'd had such good luck with his piano concerto, let's try to keep the streak going (if one enthusiastic review for a piano concerto can be considered a "streak"), so I thought I'd give Moszkowski's piano concerto a try. Well, this morning -- just as I started to type this post -- I played Moszkowski's concerto in the background for a "first" listen. Immediately, I thought, "gee, this sounds familiar. Have I heard this piece before?" Then it dawned on me -- I think I've reviewed this concerto before for this very blog! I searched my archive list shown at the right, and there was the name, "Moszkowski." I clicked on it, and voila -- I reviewed this work during the week of 3/14/21, HERE. It turns out I was working through a list at ClassicFM.com entitled "The 11 most underrated composers in classical music," HERE. As far as I know, this is the first time I've selected a piece to listen to "for the first time" for a second time! LOL! Back to the drawing board! I'll pick another piece to listen to later today! Okay, so I've selected a new piece for this week: I went to Spotify, typed in the name "Moszkowski," and picked the first work in a list of pieces by the composer, "Overture in D Major." You can listen to the overture HERE. I have many favorite overtures. Some of them are overtures to operas (Tannhauser, Rienzi, Candide, The Barber of Seville, etc.), and others are just orchestral works (An Outdoor Overture, Overture di Ballo, Hebrides Overture, etc.). Therefore, I tried to find information on this piece to find out if it were an overture to an opera, an introductory piece for some incidental music for a play, or a standalone orchestral work. There was little information available, but from what I could determine, this is, indeed, a standalone work, one with no opus number. And, as a matter of fact, this was Moszkowski's first composition. A site about an album of works by Moszkowski (HERE) states, "This third volume presents his very first orchestral work, a strikingly assured Overture in D major, written when he was seventeen...." Another site I explored (HERE) asserts that the Overture is "unpublished" (at least at the time the article was written?) and that it was discovered "around 2011." This site also states that "The main thematic material in this Overture closely resembles that of some motives in the 1st movement of his Symphony, which he would...write about a year later." I've not heard Moszkowski's Symphony, so I can't speak to that, but I will say that some of this overture did remind me very much of another work -- but I can only sing it; I can't recall its name! LOL! NOTE: SEE THE "UPDATE" BELOW. I FIGURED OUT WHAT THE PIECE IS! ; ) One of these days, when I hear that piece again, I'll come back to this page and update it with info as to what that song is! Anyway, I did enjoy Moszkowski's Overture (D Major is such a cheerful key!), but I don't see it being one of my "go-to" overtures like all of the titles I mentioned above. Of course, if Moszkowski was 17 when he wrote this piece, then that's really quite impressive! It's definitely worth a listen. UPDATE: I figured out the name of the piece that Moszkowski's overtures reminded me of, the Ruy Blas Overture by Felix Mendelssohn (composed in 1839) -- specifically the melody at about 2:45 into the YouTube video (with score) posted HERE.
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A New Hope:As the header above says, each week I will listen to a piece of classical music that I've never heard before, and then I will report out what I thought about it. Archives
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