S2.E30. Winter through the lenses of Holst and Tchaikovsky, Chaos with Chopin, High Spirits with Dvorak.

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Welcome back to Perfect Pitch with Nick Healy Hutchinson and his fresh approach to the world of classical music. Whether you're an expert or a beginner, old or young. Perfect Pitch has something for everyone.

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Last week I mentioned that this year marks the 100th anniversary of the death of Gabrielle Forre. It also marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Anton Bruckner, so I expect we'll be hearing a fair bit of his music as well. I'm sure there'll be others too. But 2024 will commemorate 150 years of the birth of Gustav Holbert. Yes, I know his music quite recently. But it's a piece which may well be made to you and it's perfect for this time. And Idle, as well definition I found puts it, it looks a peaceful, happy, and simple scene on the country side. Even if it probably takes issue with the word simple. But idle is a strange word to go alongside a winter. It holds a winter idle. There's nothing particularly restful or anything overly buccalic here. It's certainly about nature, but much more of a menacing storm, a celebration of its scale, its grandeur. Interspersed with some sweet light and large moments on the string, all attained through some rich amateur orchestration. An early hint of the skills which he uses for the piece for which he became most famous, The Planet, some twenty years later. A winter idyll is played here by the Ulster Orchestra, conducted by Joe Anne Falletta. It's two minutes of mere chaos. The left hand appearing to thump out a message of rage, with the right hand providing some kind of nostalgic, frenzied balance. Imagine then, I can't put it any other way, having the cojones to come on stage and play this, as Grigory Stokoloff did for an encore. And another work, which I suspect will be new to many. Frequent versions had to be made to placate patrons and orchesters alike. I'd much rather add it in a live performance myself. But in my defense, four, five, and six get the most out of these days. That might suggest something bleak, but it's apart from that. After a brief introduction, Tchaikovsky uses the oboe, as he so often does, to announce the melody, which is then picked up by other parts of the orchestra. And what a great melody it is. The second movement of Tchaikovsky's first symphony is played here by the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Marius Jansen. The Vorjak's Slavonic dances, a couple of which we've listened to in previous podcasts, were so popular that demand for his music rocketed from publishers outside his country, especially Germany. His own publisher, Tim Rock, couldn't quite put his finger on exactly what was needed when he asked Vorjak to write something Hungarian or Slavic or Bohemian Fantasy or some other new but familiar term. This diverse expectation is no doubt what the Australian conductor Charles McCarrot, one of his greatest templates and later times, was talking about when he said the Vorjak's works, although frequently inspired by tech nationalism, are, however, completely cosmopolitan and have an international appeal. That's what you get in this virtuostic piece, Mazarik, written for violin and piano and orchestrated by the composer not long afterwards. It's brimming with Joadaviva and Sophie Mutter, with a Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Manfred Honick, fulfill the brief right from the start.

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