My desire to create this band and this album dates back to January 2020, just before the Covid pandemic.
Guy Braunstein, who was concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for nearly fifteen years, pursues an international career as soloist, conductor and composer. Inspired by a period of Beatlemania at home with his family, Braunstein wove a dozen songs from the Beatles’ celebrated Abbey Road album into a concerto for violin and orchestra entitled Abbey Road Concerto.
Guy Braunstein, who was concertmaster of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for nearly fifteen years, pursues an international career as soloist, conductor and composer. Inspired by a period of Beatlemania at home with his family, Braunstein wove a dozen songs from the Beatles’ celebrated Abbey Road album into a concerto for violin and orchestra entitled Abbey Road Concerto.
Few literary works exerted as strong an influence on European culture in the 19th century as Goethe’s play Faust. While several important composers drew inspiration from it, Franz Liszt seems to have had a particularly close relationship with Goethe’s masterpiece. He came up with the idea of a symphony ‘in three characteristic pictures’, each devoted to a key character in the play: Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. Rather than telling the story of the play, Liszt composed a psychological exploration of these three main figures. He was also a pioneer in his use of leitmotifs, i.e. short musical ideas that underline a trait of character or evoke feelings, a process that his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner, would take even further in his operas.
Few literary works exerted as strong an influence on European culture in the 19th century as Goethe’s play Faust. While several important composers drew inspiration from it, Franz Liszt seems to have had a particularly close relationship with Goethe’s masterpiece. He came up with the idea of a symphony ‘in three characteristic pictures’, each devoted to a key character in the play: Faust, Gretchen and Mephistopheles. Rather than telling the story of the play, Liszt composed a psychological exploration of these three main figures. He was also a pioneer in his use of leitmotifs, i.e. short musical ideas that underline a trait of character or evoke feelings, a process that his future son-in-law, Richard Wagner, would take even further in his operas.