Rameau, Shostakovich, minor stars 2025
This Week in Classical Music: September 22, 2025. Rameau, Shostakovich and extra. A number of anniversaries of essential composers occur this week, and in addition these of composers who will not be as well-known internationally however are vital of their respective nations. The large names are Jeanand Dmitri Shostakovich, the previous, one of the crucial vital French Baroque composers of the 18th century, the latter, along with Prokofiev, probably the most celebrated Soviet one. We’ve written about each of them many occasions, for instance, right here about Rameau, or right here about Shostakovich, so right now, we’ll current a few of their music and transfer on to the lesser stars. We’ll hear excerpts from Rameau’s opera Les fêtes d’Hébé, an opera-ballet that premiered in 1739 within the theater of the Palais-Royal. His second opera-ballet, after Les Indes galantes, Les fêtes was very profitable. One of the best singers and dancers had been engaged, and it turned Rameau’s most profitable opera, with 80 stagings within the first yr. Right here are the primary three numbers from the ballet music for Les fêtes. The English Chamber Orchestra performed by Raymond Leppard.
As for Shostakovich, right here’s one among his quartets, no 6, from 1956. Shostakovich’s quartets are much less “political” than his symphonies, and this one is generally lighthearted, a rarity for the composer. It’s carried out by the Fitzwilliam Quartet.
One in all our “lesser stars” is the Lithuanian composer and painter, Mikalojus Čiurlionis, and September 22 marks his 150th anniversary. Čiurlionis is a Lithuanian nationwide composer, a central determine in Lithuanian tradition; he occupies a spot that Sibelius holds in Finland or Grieg in Norway. His work are as vital as his music (and possibly higher identified). For hundreds of years, Lithuania was in a union with Poland, until the Russian Empire captured it within the 1790s, and
Čiurlionis wrote in Polish. We’ve his detailed biography right here. Čiurlionis died on the age of 35, so most of his music is “early.” Right here, from 1901, is Nocturne Op.6, no.2. Nikolaus Lahusen is on the piano.
As a lot as Čiurlionis was Lithuania’s nationwide composer, Komitas was Armenia’s. Komitas was born Sogomon Sogomonian on September 26th of 1869 within the metropolis of Kütahya, the Ottoman Empire (now Turkey). Orphaned on the age of 12, he was despatched to Etchmiadzin, Armenia’s spiritual middle, educated in a seminary there, and have become an ordained priest. He began amassing Armenian people music quickly after (the primary assortment was revealed in 1895) after which continued his musical research in Berlin. He stayed there for 3 years after which returned to Etchmiadzin, the place he continued amassing people music and publishing songs and arranged a quired, with which he gave live shows in Yerevan and Tbilisi. He later traveled to Europe and, in 1910, moved to Constantinople, Etchmiadzin being too conservative for him. Constantinople, with the then massive Armenian inhabitants, was a middle of Armenian tradition. Komitas thrived there, organizing choirs, lecturing, instructing and writing music. All of it resulted in 1915 with the Ottoman government-sponsored Armenian massacres. Hundreds of thousands had been killed. Komitas was arrested and deported to the inside of the nation. He survived however had a psychological breakdown, from which he by no means recovered. He was moved to a French hospital in Constantinople after which to a psychological clinic within the suburbs of Paris. He died on October 22nd of 1935. Right here are excerpts from Patarag, the Divine Armenian Liturgy by Komitas. The Russian Chamber Refrain of New York (sic!) is performed by Nikolai Kachanov.
