Classical Music Playlist, January 30, 2023

The late 19th-century “romantic warfare” equates “absolute music”, such as that of Brahms, with the idea that music should not express anything other than itself, and the ideas of narratives, such as those of Wagner. I tried to counter the “programmed music” that I was trying to convey and support. photograph. Wagnerian critic Adolphe Julien asked the composer Édouard Lalo for the explanatory ideas that guided the composition of his 1887 symphony in G minor. Lalo confronted the “war” by replying to Julian: “I had no literary thought in the sense that you mean it. I have only the sound realm of melody and harmony in front of me and around me when I write , and for a musician this vast field, apart from all literature, its poetry and drama, defines itself. I own it.”
The only symphony by Edouard Lalo, the final orchestral composition is today’s noon masterpiece.