Escape David Hirschfelder

David Felder’s (b. 1953) music may be somewhat difficult to categorize for the average listener. Electronics are an important component, not simply as an enhancement to human players in an orchestra, but as an additional instrument: a concerto for electronics and orchestra. This idea is beautifully expressed in the opening piece, “Tweener,” where electronics and the Slee Sinfonietta combine to give a feeling of the “music of the spheres.” Vigorous oscillations across many octaves from the very high to a descent well below the baseline by the rarely heard, contra-bass clarinet, attempt to express the feeling of infinite space.

From “E.T.” to “Harry Potter” and “Jurassic Park” – Great Music from the Movies for Solo Piano. Austrian jazz pianist David Helbock plays music by multiple Oscar- and Grammy-winning American film composer John Williams.

Shamus O’Brien is set against the Irish rebellion of 1798, and tells the story of the charismatic Shamus O’Brien, hunted by the English so he can be brought to justice – but will he manage to escape? The opera was so successful that Stanford feared it would incite anti-English sentiment and he withdrew it, but, revived after his death, its mix of pathos, drama, and melodies proved irresistible. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was a prolific composer, and his church music, in particular, is regularly played and sung.

Shamus O’Brien is set against the Irish rebellion of 1798, and tells the story of the charismatic Shamus O’Brien, hunted by the English so he can be brought to justice – but will he manage to escape? The opera was so successful that Stanford feared it would incite anti-English sentiment and he withdrew it, but, revived after his death, its mix of pathos, drama, and melodies proved irresistible. Sir Charles Villiers Stanford was a prolific composer, and his church music, in particular, is regularly played and sung.

The article on Lauro Rossi (1812–85) in Grove I was written by the late Julian Budden, who was regarded, rightly, as an expert on Verdi. But as Budden considered all other Italian opera composers during the latter half of the 19th century as engaged in frustrated attempts to escape conventionality, so he does Rossi…