Musique pour orchestre, Volume 4

Description

The Polish composer Moritz Moszkowski (1854–1925) is best known for a few virtuosic piano pieces, but he also produced a significant body of orchestral music, most of which has not been performed for a century or more. This fourth volume presents his only symphony, a work of striking assurance for a composer at the end of his adolescence. Unsurprisingly, it owes much to Schumann in its dancing rhythms, heraldic port, and orchestral colors – and the Scherzo could almost be by Mendelssohn on holiday in Poland. The "Six Épisodes" – charming, delightful, and energizing in turn – are all that remains of the lost complete ballet Laurin. They were saved because Moszkowski extracted them for concerts, thus creating a "Dance Suite" in all but name.