Four Centuries of Great Music November 9, 2025 Celebration of the Music of Some Composer whose Birthday Anniversaries are in November

Paul Hindemith    11/16/1895

1_05_Thema mit vier Variationen 'Die vier Temperamente' - Thema. Moderato
1_06_Thema mit vier Variationen 'Die vier Temperamente' - Melancholisch. Langsam
1_07_Thema mit vier Variationen 'Die vier Temperamente' - Sanguinisch. Walzer
1_08_Thema mit vier Variationen 'Die vier Temperamente' - Phlegmatisch. Moderato
1_09_Thema mit vier Variationen 'Die vier Temperamente' - Cholerisch. Vivace

Anna Gourari, piano and the Orchestra della Svizzera italiana,  conducted by Markus Poschner
Paul Hindemith / Alfred Schnittke
ECM Records

Paul Hindemith was born on November 16, 1895 in Hanau, Germany.  Studied violin, conducting and composition at 
Dr. Hoch's Konservatorium.  He played in the Frankfurt Opera Orchestra and Rebner String Quartet before founding the Amar Quartet, He left Germany in the late 1930s partly because his wife was of part-Jewish ancestry and his conflict with the artistic policies of the Third Reich. Beginning in 1940 he taught at Yale University and received American citizenship in 1946.  But he returned to Europe in the early 1950s and died in Frankfort. Germany on December 29, 1963.

Hindemith’s The Four Temperments. Originally conceived as a ballet for Léonide Massine, Hindemith – just recently exiled in the US – ultimately completed the score as a commission for George Balanchine, basing it on the Greek theory of temperaments, while its formal conception is a theme with four variations. “The piano appears in all parts,” Roman Brotbeck remarks in the liner notes. “Sometimes as a virtuoso soloist, sometimes as an obbligato accompanist or rhythmically propelling. In this recording, soloist Anna Gourari slips into the various roles like a chameleon and, together with conductor Markus Poschner, unleashes a fantastically surreal dance.”

Carl Maria von Weber    11/18/1786

Clarinet Quintet In B Flat Major, Op. 34, J. 182: I. Allegro
Clarinet Quintet In B Flat Major, Op. 34, J. 182: II. Fantasia - Adagio ma non troppo
Clarinet Quintet In B Flat Major, Op. 34, J. 182: III. Minuetto- Capriccio presto
Clarinet Quintet In B Flat Major, Op. 34, J. 182: IV.  Rondo - Allegro giocoso
Auer String Quartet, Kalman Berkes, clarinet
Weber: Clarinet Quintet, Op. 34 / Grand Duo Concertant
Naxos Recordings



Benjamin Britten    11/22/1913-  11/25

Benjamin Britten:  Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68 - I. Allegro Maestoso
Benjamin Britten:  Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68 - II. Presto Inquieto
Benjamin Britten:  Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68 - III. Adagio,  Cadenza
Benjamin Britten:  Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68 - IV. Passacaglia,  Andante Allegro
Benjamin Britten, Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra & Mstislav Rostropovich
Britten: Symphony for Cello and Orchestra, Op. 68
Pipeline Music

Benjamin Britten was born on November 22, 1913 in Lowestoft in Suffolk, England.  He studied composition at the Royal Academy of Music, spent the early war years in the United States before returning to Great Britain.  He settled in Aldeburgh where he founded the Aldeburgh Festival.  His music is more neo-romantic than modern although there were some touches of atonality in his later works. He is probably most famous for his operas Peter Grimes (1945), Billy Budd (1951), Gloriana (1953), A Midsummer Night's Dream (1960) and Death in Venice (1973).  He died of congestive heart failure on 4 December 1976



Manuel de Falla    11/23/1876 - 11/25

Nights in the Gardens of Spain 
I. En el Generalife (In the Generalife) 10:25
III. En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba 8:15
(In the Gardens of the Sierra de Córdoba
Clélia Iruzun piano, Ulster Orchestra, Jac van Steen conductor
Manuel de Falla: The Three-Cornered Hat · Nights in the Gardens of Spain · Seven Spanish Folk Songs
SOMM Recordings