The Baden-Baden Idyll

The 'Idyll' is scored for a chamber or small orchestra. I wrote it to accompany a collection of connected short stories I had been working on about the French-Spanish opera diva and composer, Pauline Viardot-García, and her brilliant circle of musician, artist, and writer friends in Baden-Baden in the 1860s which included Klara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. Pauline first performed Brahms' Alto Rhapsody which gives a good indication of how much he admired and respected her as a singer. 

 

The music is meant to paint a musical picture of this 'ideal' or 'idyllic' (hence the name 'idyll') world which was brought to an end by the invasion of France by Prussia in 1870. As a result of the war, the Viardots sold their villa in Baden-Baden and settled in Paris, never to return to live in Germany. 

 

I found it very helpful to write music in the German Romantic style of the mid-19th century although I tried consciously not to compose 'Brahms-like' music. Interestingly, I found it is quite easy to write pastiche Wagner and some 'imaginary  Wagner' features in the Idyll. However, the Idyll does quote Brahms' music and Robert Schumann's, also. There is music with a Spanish flavour which represents Pauline although she is mainly represented by the 'love theme' in A-flat minor (starting at bar 50). 

 

Instrumentation: oboe; clarinet in B ?at and A; bassoon; french horn in F; vl. I; vl. II; va. I; va. II and vc. (all strings: at least 2 players per part). Duration: 27' 09".