Little Music for Strings
composer: Alexander Goehr
op. 16
Dedication: for the Lucerne Festival Strings and Rudolf Baumgartner
Premiere: September 7, 1963 Luzern (CH) Lucerne Festival 1963 · Conductor: Rudolf Baumgartner · Lucerne Festival Strings
Publisher: Schott Music Ltd., London
Duration: 11' 0''
Year of composition: 1963
Edition: performance material
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Description
This work was commissioned for the 1963 Lucerne Festival and was first performed there in August by the Lucerne Festival Strings directed by Rudolf Baumgartner. It is in two movements.
The first movement is a set of six variations on a short recitative which is played at the beginning. Each variation is repeated twice. This movement is closely linked in character and technical vocabulary to the 19 chorale variations which form the second movement of my Little Symphony, Op. 15. The movement is written against a background metre of 4 + 3 which may be
8
more readily appreciated in the variations themselves than in the recitative theme.
The second movement, allegro moderato, is vaguely related formally to the principle of the rondo. Before the coda, the recitative of the first movement is reworked in a new harmonisation.
Alexander Goehr
Recordings
Sir Michael Tippett (1998)
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BBC Philharmonic Orchestra; English String Orchestra; Christ Church Cathedral Choir; English Northern Philharmonia; Sir Michael Tippett, William Boughton, Stephen Darlington (conductors)
NIMBUS RECORDS
NI 1759
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