Baton Music

As a contribution to the opera "Armer Columbus" by German composer Erwin Dressel, Shostakovich composed two of his quirkiest and oddest early orchestral pieces.

Ottorino Respighi (1879 - 1936) had already begun to attract international attention for his orchestral tone poem "Fontane di Roma" (Fountains of Rome, 1917) when he wrote his "Ballata delle...

"Cantique de Noel" (O Holy Night) is a Christmas carol composed by French composer Adolphe Adam in 1847 to the poem "Minuit, Chretiens" (Midnight, Christians) by Placide Cappeau (1808-1877).

Hans Christian Lumbye is best known for his light compositions, many of which evoke non-musical sources. This "Copenhagen Steam Railway Galop" (originally title: "Kobenhavn Jernbane Damp Galop")...

"Der Zigeunerbaron" ist Strauss' zweibekannteste Operette nach "Die Fledermaus". Die Ouvertüre beginnt in einer Stimmung von Zigeuner-Melancholie und Vorahnung und wandelt sich zu einem...

As a composer Lehar started with contributions to the opera-genre but the great triumph of his first operetta "Die lustige Witwe", (The merry widow), in 1905 made him clear that he had to give his...

Die Zauberflöte isn't a romantic love story but a real parable: a resemblance about higher human striving to purity and self-improvement. Not love between two people is in the centre but a...

Johann Strauss jr. composed a great amount of polka's, mazurka's and marsches to perform with his own orchestra that played on "dance soirees" in Vienna. His polka opus 332 "Eljen a Magyar!"...

In 1886 Emile Waldteufel composed "Espana, Waltzes after Emmanuel Chabrier" in which Waldteufel very prominently used parts of Chabrier"s masterpiece "Espana".

Many of Waldteufel's popular waltzes were arrangements of folk themes or themes by other composers. Such is the case with Waldteufel's Op. 191, a set of waltzes based on Paul Lacome's...