#ClassicsaDay #Classical1924 Week 3

 It's become an annual tradition. For the first month of the new year, the Classics a Day team looks back a century. So the challenge for January 2024 is to post performances of classical works that were either composed, premiered, or first recorded in 1924.

It turns out 1924 was a landmark year for classical music. Here are my posts for the third week of #Classical1924.

01/15/24 Arthur Wood: My Native Heath

Wood was a staff composer for Boosey & Hawkes. This orchestral suite featured several orchestrated country dances. Only "Barwick Green" from this suite is still performed.

 

01/16/24 Ralph Vaughan Williams: Hugh the Drover

This opera premiered in 1924 at His Majesty's Theatre. Vaughan Williams makes effective use of folk songs and sets a prize fight to music. Easter egg: at midnight the town's church bells play "York," one of RVW's favorite hymn tunes and the foundation for his "Pilgrim's Progress."

 

01/17/24 Paul Hindemith: Klaviermusik (Concerto for Piano and Orchestra), Op. 29

This work was a commission from Paul Wittgenstein, the left-handed pianist. Wittgenstein never performed it. And since the commission included life rights, no one else could play it until after his death. It was finally premiered in 2004 with Leon Fleisher.

 

01/18/24 Erich Wolfgang Korngold: Piano Concerto for the left hand in C-sharp, Op. 17

The left-handed pianist Paul Wittgenstein commissioned this work. Korngold completed it in 1923. Wittgenstein premiered it in Vienna in 1924 with the composer conducting.

 

01/19/24 Karl Weigl: Piano Concerto for the left hand

Weigl wrote this work on commission from Paul Wittgenstein, the left-handed pianist. Wittgenstein never performed the work in public. The exclusive nature of the commission prevented anyone else from performing the work until after his death in 1961.