Holbrooke / Ingolfsson / Griffiths Josef Holbrooke: Violin Concerto / Grasshopper CD

When the symphonic poem The Raven after Edgar Allan Poe celebrated it's premiere in London in March, 1900, the critics showered hymns of praise on his work so rich in unique orchestral colors and on it's young composer Josef Holbrooke. It brought him his breakthrough and firmly established his reputation as an innovative and original contemporary composer. There are certainly many settings of Poe's poem, but Holbrooke was the first composer who did not merely set the text but used it as the poetic basis for his first "Poem for Orchestra." Holbrooke's idiom was the musical language of the late nineteenth century obliged to the primacy of expression, and he enriched it with his constant quest for new tonal effects. In his orchestral variations on the beloved Scottish folk song "Auld Lang Syne" he again displays his extraordinary gift for employing his absolutely inexhaustible inventive talent and fine feeling for harmony in order to endow simple song forms with subtle expressive variety.

1. Theme: Andante Espressivo 2. Variation 1 3. Variation 2 4. Variation 3 5. Variation 4 6. Variation 5 7. Variation 6 8. Variation 7 9. Variation 8 10. Variation 9 11. Variation 10 12. Variation 11 13. Variation 12 14. Variation 13 15. Variation 14 16. Variation 15 17. Variation 16 18. Variation 17 19. Variation 18 20. Variation 19 21. Variation 20 22. I. Allegro Con Molto Fuoco - Judith Ingolfsson/Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt 23. II. Adagio Non Troppo Con Molto Espressione - Judith Ingolfsson/Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt 24. III. Maestoso - Vivace Giocose - Judith Ingolfsson/Brandenburgisches Staatsorchester Frankfurt 25. The Raven, Op. 25