Serge Koussevitzky: Four Pieces
Product Description
Koussevitzky's place in the history of music is assured by his virtuosity as a bassist and by his sensational successful career as conductor and audience-enhancer of the Boston Symphony with its concomitant venues, the Boston Pops and the Tanglewood Festival.
The Four Pieces were written in his early twenties when, as a young recitalist, he was seeking original material to supplement the transcriptions of solo material, especially Baroque Sonatas, intended for cellists and gambists. At that time, the Viennese Era of the Strausses and Fritz Kriessler, there was a hunger for vignettes, short pieces that would serve to embellish an afternoon's cup of tea or glass of sherry or even a stein of beer. It was in this spirit that he composed the Four Pieces.
The four short pieces that he created can be viewed as a Salon Suite: together, the sweet Andante, the lilting Valse, the sad Chanson, and the merry Humoresque, add up to a most attractive solo work and should be part of a bassist's study and performance repertoire.
This edition, in tribute to Koussevitzky, is the first that combines all four movements. It is hoped that the bassists will evoke the contrasting moods of the Suite: tender, happy, sorrowful, jolly.
- David Walter, Editor
The Four Pieces were written in his early twenties when, as a young recitalist, he was seeking original material to supplement the transcriptions of solo material, especially Baroque Sonatas, intended for cellists and gambists. At that time, the Viennese Era of the Strausses and Fritz Kriessler, there was a hunger for vignettes, short pieces that would serve to embellish an afternoon's cup of tea or glass of sherry or even a stein of beer. It was in this spirit that he composed the Four Pieces.
The four short pieces that he created can be viewed as a Salon Suite: together, the sweet Andante, the lilting Valse, the sad Chanson, and the merry Humoresque, add up to a most attractive solo work and should be part of a bassist's study and performance repertoire.
This edition, in tribute to Koussevitzky, is the first that combines all four movements. It is hoped that the bassists will evoke the contrasting moods of the Suite: tender, happy, sorrowful, jolly.
- David Walter, Editor
