Adam Tendler plays the second movement of Prokofiev's Sarcasms (1912) live in concert.

Sergei Prokofiev, Sarcasms, Op. 17, II  Allegro rubato

Mazurka in B Major, Op. 63 No. 1

The Beauty of Classical Chamber Strings, Vol. 1

Johann Sebastian Bach - Cello Suite No. 3 in C major, BWV 1009, V. Bourree (String Quintet)

Valentin Foster - I Don't Wanna Know

Requiem, Op. 48 - Pie Jesu

Gabriel Fauré, composer
Ryan Dodge, arranger
Trevor Nuckols, horn
David Ball, organ

When Gabriel Fauré sat down to write what he at first called his Petit Requiem in 1887, he could not have helped but think of settings by three of the nineteenth century’s most illustrious composers: Hector Berlioz (1837), Giuseppe Verdi (1874), and Johannes Brahms (1868). Two of these – by Berlioz and Verdi – are on an enormous scale and pack overwhelming dramatic punch. The kinder, gentler Deutsches Requiem by Brahms, composed following the death of his mother, is an outlier, avoiding altogether the Latin liturgical texts with its images of hell and eternal damnation and focusing more on the notions of release from suffering and eternal life.

Fauré’s approach is something of a hybrid, freely excerpting texts from the Requiem Mass and other liturgies according to his own aesthetic. In a 1902 interview, Fauré, who spent his career as an organist, said his goal was “to stray from the established path after all those years accompanying funerals! I’d had them up to here. I wanted to do something different.”

First performed in Paris’s Madeleine Church at the 1888 funeral of architect Joseph Lesoufaché, Fauré’s Petit Requiem initially used only the tender closing section, Pie Jesu, from the predominantly “fire and brimstone” Sequence (Dies irae, dies illa…) which evokes the “day of wrath, day of doom,” the “righteous Judge of vengeance” and “all of nature quaking” at the blast of the trumpet.

“Everything I managed to entertain by way of religious illusion I put into my Requiem, which moreover is dominated from beginning to end by a very human feeling of faith in eternal rest,” Faure said, shortly after completing the first of several versions he would write over a fifteen-year period.

Fauré’s original version, from 1888, was scored for a choir of about 40, accompanied by a small orchestra of solo violin, divided violas, divided cellos and basses, harp, timpani and organ. The use of lower strings with no brass was clearly intended to emphasize the gentle, comforting nature of the piece. When Fauré got around to preparing the score for publication in 1893, he made several revisions, adding portions from the liturgical Offertoire and the Libera me, which had begun life several years earlier as a separate work for baritone solo. He also added parts for two bassoons, four horns and two trumpets.

In the late 1890s Fauré’s publisher convinced the composer to expand the orchestration further to include full symphony orchestra. Although it seems to have rubbed against the grain, Fauré agreed and issued a third version, published in 1901, that was popular for much of the 20th century. However, in the 1970s and 1980s several Fauré scholars along with the English composer/conductor John Rutter worked to reconstruct Fauré’s original 1893 orchestration. This version is considered by many to be closest to Fauré’s original intent, although Fauré himself never renounced the larger version for full orchestra, stating that it was appropriate for certain “concert” situations.

Gabriel Fauré: Requiem, Op. 48 - Pie Jesu, arr. Ryan Dodge｜Trevor Nuckols, David Ball (Live)

Our Love is Here to Stay

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828)
Symphony No.8 in B minor D759, ’Unfinished’ - I. Allegro moderato

1st Violins: David Grimal - Sullimann Altmayer - Doriane Gable - Arnaud Vallin - Yorrick Troman - Anna Göckel - Emilie Belaud - Manon Phillipe 
2nd Violins: Hans Peter Hofmann - Jin-Hi Paik - Leslie Levi - Dorothée Node Langlois - Maud Grundmann - Nathalie Crambes - François Girard Garcia 
Violas: David Gaillard - Natacha Tchitch - Delphine Tissot - Claudine Legras - Clémence Gouet - Alain Martinez 
Cellos: Xavier Phillips - Marie Leclercq - Louis Rodde - Héloïse Luzzati 
Double basses: Laurène Durantel - Grégoire Dubruel 
Flutes: Júlia Gállego Ronda - Bastien Pelat 
Oboes: Alexandre Gattet - Gildas Prado 
Clarinets: Vicent Alberola Ferrando - Gaëlle Burgelin 
Bassoons: Julien Hardy - Lola Descours 
Horns: Antoine Dreyfuss - Pierre Burnet 
Trumpets: Josef Sadílek - François Petitlaurent 
Trombones: Murray Stenhouse - Pete Brandrick - Damien Prado 
Timpani: Camille Baslé

Live recording at Cité de la musique - Philharmonie de Paris – 19 December 2013

Schubert, Symphony No.8 in B minor D759, 'Unfinished' - I. Allegro Moderato

Stratus Chamber Orchestra, David Rutherford, conducting
Live performance - January 30, 2016

William Walton - Two Pieces For Strings From Music Henry V; II. Touch Her Soft Lips And Part

Josef Hofmann (1876-1957) playsiIn 1922 Dvorsky [pseudonym of Hofmann]: Sanctuary, from Impressions For Piano No. 3, on Duo-Art piano roll 6513.
Recorded in 2016, and the rec. updated** 11 Jun 2017,  by VViljanen (by permission)from the digitized copy of the original reproducing piano roll with virtual Grand Bluethner Model One, tone/sound modified/re-designed by VV.
COMMERCIAL USE PROHIBITED. 
Photo: The hands of Josef Hofmann ( ). Ecept of being world-famous pianist,  Hofmann, as a composer, published over one hundred works, many of those under the pseudonym Michel Dvorsky, including two piano concertos and ballet music. 
Basic Info* of the original roll:
The SANCTUARY from "Impressions For Piano", No. 3
Roll Number: 6513, 6513-4
Composer/Creator: Hofmann
Pianist: Hofmann
Roll System: Duo-Art
Country: US
Date: March, 1922
Category: popular, salon
Original Price: $3.00 (Price after 1922)
*source of the info: from The Piano Player Group web page (by permission)
**Tempo here is 0.96 x that marked on the digitized roll copy used as template for this recording

Dvorsky [Hofmann]: Sanctuary. Impressions for Piano No 3. Josef Hofmann in 1922 on Duo-Art 6513

Prokofiev - Piano Concerto No. 3 in C major, Op. 26 - I. Andante - Allegro

A recognized figure in new music and leading interpreter of American composers, pianist Adam Tendler has performed the complete major piano works of Aaron Copland, and collaborates with the John Cage Trust and Edition Peters in presenting Cage’s work internationally.

Between 2005 and 2006, Tendler appeared in all fifty United States in a grassroots touring initiative that he called America 88x50. The tour became the subject of his memoir, 88x50, which was a Kirkus Indie Book of the Month and was nominated for a Lambda Literary Award.
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Tendler has recorded performances and masterclasses for the digital music platform, Tido, and recently released the premiere recording of Edward T. Cone’s 21 Little Preludes for piano. His forthcoming album of piano works by Robert Palmer will appear on New World Records in 2019.

Sergei Prokofiev, Sarcasms, Op. 17, II Allegro rubato

adamtendler