Transcriptions

Giacomo Puccini composed his opera ‘Manon Lescaut’ in 1893 and it became together with ‘Tosca’ his first outstanding success. ‘Manon Lescaut’ is a devastating depiction of a woman wrestling with her desire for love on her own terms, and the rigid double standards imposed on her by society. The opera was a breakthrough hit for Puccini, and is packed with memorable music and heartbreaking drama. This suite contains some of the most beautiful music from ‘Manon Lescaut’ to compile a small suite for Symphonic Band.

Publisher: → Baton Music

explanation text: © www.batonmusic.nl

‘Schlagobers’ (‘Whipped Cream’), Op. 70, is a ballet in two acts with a libretto and score by Richard Strauss. Composed in 1921–22, it was given its première at the Vienna State Opera on 9 May 1924. Despite the fact that both the ballet and the later compiled suite were not an unqualified success, the ballet contained, according to the critics, at least a superb waltz. Nowadays we regularly find this ‘Schlagoberswalzer’ on all the major concert stages and it lives up to the title. Dutch arranger Christiaan Janssen transcribed this beautiful waltz now for Symphonic Band.

Publisher: → Baton Music

© explanation text: www.batonmusic.nl

‘Die schweigsame Frau’ (The Silent Woman), is an opera in three acts by Richard Strauss to a libretto by Stefan Zweig. Strauss gave the overture the subtitle ‘potpourri’. The term denotes a medley of popular nineteenth-century melodies, ones that brass and coffee-house bands would have typically performed in Strauss’s day. Nevertheless, Strauss’s overture has little in common really with these; his motifs are brief fragments of melodies, and are often juxtaposed in a masterfully elaborated polyphonic fabric.

Publisher: → Baton Music

explanation text: © Baton Music

‘Der Bürger als Edelmann’ is the German title of a play by Molière and an orchestral suite by Richard Strauss. The original French play is called ‘Le bourgeois gentilhomme’ and is about a wealthy merchant who would like to become a nobleman. The play was first performed in 1670 with music by Jean-Baptiste Lully. Strauss composed his orchestral suite in 1919 based on the music he had written between 1911 and 1917 for an adaptation of the piece by Hugo von Hofmannsthal. The suite consists of nine movements in which Strauss used some of Lully’s themes, but gave them his own romantic twist. 

Publisher: → Baton Music

explanation text: © Baton Music

‘Also sprach Zarathustra!’, (‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra’) is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical novel ‘Thus Spoke Zarathustra!’. The composer conducted its first performance on 27 November 1896 in Frankfurt.

The piece is divided into nine sections played with only three definite pauses. Strauss named the sections after selected chapters of Nietzsche’s novel highlighting  major moments of the character Zarathustra’s philosophical journey in the novel. The general storylines and ideas in these chapters were the inspiration used to build the tone poem’s structure.

The initial fanfare (‘Sunrise’) became well known after its use in Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 film ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’  and was also often used as a portent of a significant event to come or regularly used for space-related scenes.

Publisher: → Baton Music

explanation text: © Baton Music