KALEIDOSCOPE: MUSIC from a THOUSAND YEARS Album Notes by Elmira Darvarova This album presents musical works created between the 11th Century and present day — a period of 1000 years. This is a collection of 51 compositions, of which 50 are world-premiere recordings. 17 nations from 5 continents are represented, including by ten women composers. Anna Amalia, Princess of Prussia (1723-1787), the younger sister of King Frederick the Great, studied with a pupil of Johann Sebastian Bach, becoming not only an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and composer, but also compiling an extensive collection (2200 volumes) of important manuscripts by Bach and his contemporaries. As a musician on the precipice of transition from Baroque to Classical period, Anna Amalia composed vocal, chamber and organ music, and she employed Bach’s son – Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach as “honorary court composer”, while she also acquired a huge amount of J.S. Bach’s scores, including the Mass in B minor, the St. Matthew Passion and the Brandenburg Concertos, thus forming the foundation for Bach’s re-discovery throughout the Age of Enlightenment. Our transcription of Anna Amalia’s 1776 Fugue in D minor (originally for violin & viola) was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Bach, J.S. (1685-1750) was a Baroque German composer, universally revered as a titanic figure. Born in a family of professional musicians, Johann Sebastian Bach mastered multiple instruments. The combination of Bach’s enormous talent, good education and great discipline produced a phenomenal musician, who deeply enriched the world’s culture. Bach’s commitment to his vocation was so fierce, that he undertook (at age 20) lengthy journeys on foot (280 miles each way) just to be able to visit the renowned musician Buxtehude in a far away town. So accomplished was Bach as a professional and as an enlightened person, that his elevated standards exceeded the abilities and the comprehension of some of his colleagues, leading Bach to express dissatisfaction, and even insubordination towards his employers (which at one time resulted in Bach’s 4-week incarceration). Regardless of the blunt inaccuracies in Bach’s obituary (created by his own family members and relied upon by many biographers) and regardless of the many decades during which Bach’s legacy fell into oblivion, it survived and flourished, kept in the hearts of iconic geniuses like Mozart and Haydn (both of whom possessed manuscripts of Bach), or Beethoven (who revered Bach as the “father of harmony”), or Mendelssohn (who greatly contributed to the resurrected recognition of Bach’s importance). Is there another composer to date, whose music has been more extensively performed, recorded, broadcast, analyzed, adapted, and arranged (from recordings and versions by the greatest soloists and conductors, through orchestrations included in Walt Disney’s movie “Fantasia”, to electronic perspectives like “Switched-On Bach” by Wendy Carlos, an album which won 3 Grammy awards)? Bach’s legendary influence is found in every music genre, including jazz and rock. As our tribute to the indomitable J.S. Bach, we offer in this album our arrangement of the Gavotte and Musette from his 1714 English Suite No.3, BWV 808 in G minor. Bach, Jan (1937-2020), an American composer and educator whose primary instrument was the horn, studied with Aaron Copland and won numerous awards (including the Koussevitzky competition and the New York City Opera competition, as well as 6 Pulitzer Prize nominations). The New Grove Dictionary hails Jan Bach’s “structural clarity”, “subtle use of instrumental timbre” and “inexhaustible sense of humor”. We transcribed his 1964 “Four 2-bit Contraptions” (originally for flute & horn) in a version for violin & horn which the composer enthusiastically admired. In Jan Bach’s own words: “The work’s title is an obvious satirical jibe at another composing Bach, now decomposing, and his Two-Part Inventions for keyboard”. Whether performed as a part of the 4-movement composition, or as a standalone encore, Jan Bach’s “Gramophone” is a delightful miniature brimming with laughter and pranks. Bembo, Antonia (c.1640 – c.1720), a Venetian-born singer and composer, wrote music in all the major genres of the 17th C. epoch, including opera (Bembo’s 1707 five-act opera “Ercole amante” was finally performed for the very first time in 2023, more than 300 years after its composition). Fleeing an abusive marriage, Bembo immigrated to France where Louis XIV recognized and supported her musical talent. The Bibliothèque nationale de France houses 6 volumes of her music. Our transcription of Antonia Bembo’s aria “Habbi pietà di me” (from Produzioni Armoniche, F-Pn/ Rés Vm1 117) was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Bissill, Richard, an acclaimed British hornist and composer, was Principal Horn of the London Philharmonic and Principal Horn at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden. He studied horn and piano at the Royal Academy of Music in London before joining the London Symphony Orchestra aged 22. A Fellow of both the Royal Academy of Music and the Guildhall School of Music in London, he has taught at the Guildhall School since 1983, and has been Solo Horn with the London Brass since 1990. In addition to performing and teaching he has also pursued a parallel career as an arranger and composer, with works commissioned by the London Philharmonic, BBC, London Brass, British Horn Society and London Symphony. He has also written for television and film including Channel 5 and the BBC. As a freelance recording session player he has worked with artists such as Paul McCartney, Elton John, Joni Mitchell and Quincy Jones, and can be heard playing on numerous film soundtracks including Return of the Jedi, Gladiator, Shrek, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. Bissill has performed Britten’s Serenade and Mozart’s 4th Horn Concerto with the London Philharmonic at the Royal Festival Hall, and the concertos of Haydn, Telemann, Mozart and Strauss at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and the Barbican. We commissioned Richard Bissill to transcribe for us his popular composition “Fat Belly Blues” (originally for horn & piano), and we have performed this violin & horn transcription at the New York Chamber Music Festival. Bowie, David (1947-2016), was a British singer, songwriter and actor whose 26 studio albums made him one of the best-selling musicians of all time (with over 100 million records sold world-wide) and brought him universal acclaim, including 6 Grammy Awards. He explored many genres, blending rock, jazz, soul, cabaret and electronics. His 1971 rock ballad “Life on Mars?” is one of his finest compositions and is among the greatest pop songs of the 20th C., featuring soaring bravura melodies, which inspired us to transcribe and perform it as a tribute to this unique artist. Bulgarian Folk Music utilizes meters with 5, 7, 9, 11, 13 and 15 beats per measure. Bartók described with astonishment these unique asymmetrical rhythms as “Bulgarian rhythms” in a 1938 lecture: “When I first encountered these unusual rhythms in which such fine differences are decisive, I could hardly believe that they really existed.” “Krivo Sadovsko Horo” (“Crooked”, in reference to the uneven dance meter) is a rhythmically-complex Bulgarian folk dance, combining alternating meters of 15/16 and 9/16. Familiar to international audiences since the 1960s when the Bulgarian pianist Milcho Leviev (1937-2019) incorporated it in a jazz arrangement for a Don Ellis album, its exact rhythmical structure still presents a mystery for listeners who continue to debate and disbelieve the 33/16 beat count. (The 33 is actually the sum of 15+9+9, and I know this not only because this particular folk dance originates from an area just a few miles from my own birth place, but also because one of my graduation exams at the Bulgarian State Conservatory required the memorization of 100 Bulgarian folk songs and 10 complex Bulgarian folk dances in uneven rhythms.) The other dance which we transcribed – “Gankino Horo” (“Ganka’s Dance”) is in 11/16, as a combination of 2+2+3+2+2. We included as a “prelude” to our version of “Gankino Horo” a quote from the famous Bulgarian folk song “Polegnala e Todora”, which has gained world-wide popularity through the “Mystery of Bulgarian Voices” productions. Caccini, Francesca (1587-1641), a Renaissance composer and poet from Florence, was the most prominent female musician in Europe during her lifetime. Performing on 5 instruments and admired for her vocal abilities, she toured Europe as “La Cecchina” (“the Songbird”), influencing the birth of “bel canto” singing. At age 20 she became the highest-paid musician at the Medici court and was heard performing for the likes of Galileo. Becoming the first woman to have a major music composition published, she also became, in 1625, the first woman to compose an opera – “La liberazione di Ruggiero dall’isola d’Alcina” (“The Liberation of Ruggiero from Alcina’s Island”). The premiere of Caccini’s opera was an elaborate production which included a ballet of 24 horses and riders. Our transcription of the Siren’s Aria “Chi nel fior di giovinezza” (“In the Flower of Youth”) from Caccini’s opera was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Clarke, Rebecca (1886-1979) was a British-born American composer and viola virtuoso. She was the first female composition student at the Royal College of Music in London, later becoming one of the first female professional orchestral players. She performed solo and chamber music in BBC broadcasts, making several recordings. Her mastery has been compared to that of Debussy and Ravel, but in her youth, as a pioneering female composer, she encountered frequent discouragement and met with outright unwillingness to accept the magnitude of her talent. (Critics ignored Clarke’s works premiered at a 1918 recital in New York, while praising, at the same recital, her composition “Morpheus” written under the pseudonym of “Anthony Trent”.) Clarke’s Lullaby, originally published ca. 1916 as part of “Two Pieces for Viola (or Violin) and Cello”, was performed by us at Carnegie Hall. Cohen, Jeremy is a Grammy-nominated jazz violinist and composer who studied with Perlman, founded the pioneering, multi-Grammy-nominated Quartet San Francisco, and is widely renowned as a composer, arranger, educator and recording artist. Having performed and toured with Quartet San Francisco and with the Turtle Island String Quartet, Cohen also appeared on Carlos Santana’s Grammy-winning CD Supernatural, Santana’s Shaman, and the original Star Wars compilation CD with John Williams. He was the solo violinist in San Francisco’s 2-year production of Forever Tango and toured nationally with the Broadway production of The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. Our arrangement of Jeremy Cohen’s “Blues Etude” (originally composed for solo violin, as part of Cohen’s “Stylistic Etudes for Solo Violin”) was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Darvarova, Elmira is an award-winning, Grammy-nominated concert violinist and a former concertmaster of the Metropolitan Opera (first-ever, and as of 2026 still the only-ever woman-concertmaster in the MET’s history). A student of Szeryng and Gingold, she is a prolific recording artist (45 albums to date), hailed by American Record Guide as a “marvelous violinist in the Heifetz tradition”. Her recording of Kodaly’s Duo with Janos Starker is widely acknowledged as the definitive recording of that work. Darvarova has also recorded albums with Pascal Rogé, Gary Karr, Vassily Lobanov and Octavio Brunetti. Darvarova has appeared on prestigious stages of 5 continents, including at Carnegie Hall (as soloist with orchestra) and she was featured in Gramophone Magazine with an interview about her world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke’s violin concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony. Darvarova’s composition “Kissed by the Rain” is based on the Indian Raga Desh. Darvarova performed with the world-renowned Indian sarodist Amjad Ali Khan on 2 continents (including on 4 tours of India), and she recorded with him several albums for sarod and violin, one of which received Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards and another debuted at No.3 on the Billboard Charts. Dinicu, Grigoraș (1889-1949) was a Romanian violin virtuoso and composer of Roma ethnicity whose talent was greatly admired by legendary violinists such as Heifetz and Grappelli. Dinicu’s grandfather was also renowned, as the composer of the popular tune “Ciocârlia” (“Skylark”), presented at the 1889 inauguration of the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Hora Mărțișorului by Grigoraș Dinicu honors a tradition unique to Romania and Bulgaria, celebrating March 1 as the arrival of spring, with people exchanging red & white charms symbolizing renewal. While many arrangements exist, our own transcription of Dinicu’s Hora Mărțișorului is the only one for horn & violin. Duke, Vernon (1903-1969) was a Russian-born American composer, poet and author, who also wrote under his original name Vladimir Dukelsky. A student of Glière, he was a lifelong friend of Prokofiev. After relocating to the United States, he received commissions for concertos from Rubinstein and Piatigorsky. Abbreviating his original name to Vernon Duke as suggested by his friend Gershwin, he also took Gershwin’s advice to compose for Broadway and film, and is best known for the jazz standards “Autumn in New York” and “April in Paris”. Notwithstanding his huge success on Broadway and in Hollywood, Duke continued to compose classical music, encouraged by commissions from Koussevitzky and Diaghilev. The Boston Symphony premiered Duke’s First and Second Symphonies, as well as Duke’s Cello Concerto with Piatigorsky, and his Violin Concerto (written originally for Heifetz, premiered by Ruth Posselt). I had the honor of registering, in 2014, the world-premiere recording of Duke’s Violin Concerto, with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony conducted by Scott Dunn; on the same album I also recorded (together with New York Philharmonic bassoonist Kim Laskowski) Vernon Duke’s 1931 Étude for Violin and Bassoon. Howard Wall’s violin & horn transcription of the Étude is based on the original text. We have performed this arrangement throughout North America and Europe. Ellington, Edward Kennedy “Duke” (1899-1974) was an American composer, pianist and jazz orchestra leader, who transcended the jazz category to become a historical figure in the general realm of American music. His more than 1000 compositions are the largest recorded personal jazz legacy, and numerous of his works are standards. Made world�famous by radio broadcasts, he worked in tandem with his close associate Billy Strayhorn, and also collaborated with Louis Armstrong, John Coltrane and Charles Mingus. The level of sophistication that Ellington brought to jazz has been unsurpassed. His 1940 “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” remains among the most cherished jazz standards of all time, while his 1928 composition “Black Beauty” was dedicated to singer/dancer/comedian Florence Mills and became one of his most popular works, of which he recorded many versions. We have performed our own arrangements of “Black Beauty” and “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” throughout North America and Europe. Garner, Erroll (1921-1977) was one of the world’s most influential and renowned jazz pianists during his lifetime, composing nearly 200 works despite being self-taught and unable to read music. (He quipped “No one can hear you read” and recorded his ideas on tape, transcribed by others.) Playing the piano since age 3 and performing professionally at 7, the Pittsburgh-born Garner became one of the most brilliant jazz artists ever, developing an original polyrhythmic style, recording for more than 40 labels and appearing on TV shows world-wide, while scoring music for orchestra, ballet, film and television. Garner’s 1954 ballad “Misty” became a huge jazz standard and in 1971 was featured in Clint Eastwood’s movie “Play Misty for Me”. Recorded by Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan and Aretha Franklin (among countless others), “Misty” was named #15 on ASCAP’s list of 20th C. top songs. Reflecting on Garner’s habit to improvise whimsical episodes in stark contrast to the rest of a composition, I included in my arrangement of “Misty” an extended violin solo cadenza featuring quotes from Bach and Paganini. Genghis Khan (c.1162-1227), the founder of the Mongol Empire, was a pivotal historic figure, therefore songs celebrating Genghis Khan would have likely originated during his lifetime (12th -13th C.), proliferating ever since, as part of the Mongolian “long song” form. In 1994 Munkhbat Jamsranjav, a prominent performer of morin khuur (a traditional Mongolian “horsehead” fiddle) composed “Ode to Genghis Khan”. Our arrangement of this popular tune is meant to evoke Mongolian throat-singing and ancient Mongolian instruments. Giacomelli, Geminiano (1692-1740) was one of the best known opera composers in Italy in the early 18th C. His 1734 opera “La Merope” includes the aria (written for the superstar-castrato Farinelli) “Sposa, non mi conosci” (“Am I to my spouse unknown?”) which was later “borrowed” by Vivaldi. Giacomelli’s “Sposa, non mi conosci” (Epitide’s Aria, Scene 7, Act III) has been recorded by singers such as Cecilia Bartoli and Philippe Jaroussky, while the full opera has never been recorded. Our own transcription of this aria was premiered at Carnegie Hall. Glière, Reinhold (1875-1956) was a Russian-Soviet composer of non-Russian descent (like Nikolai Medtner, Georgy Catoire and César Cui). Glière studied violin with Ševčík and composition with pupils of Rimsky-Korsakov and Tchaikovsky. Like his fellow students – Scriabin and Rachmaninoff, Glière in his compositions adhered to the national Russian tradition. Among Glière’s students were Khachaturian, Prokofiev and Vladimir Dukelsky (a.k.a. Vernon Duke.) Glière’s conservative style shielded him from the political abuses and purges endured by Shostakovich, Prokofiev and Khachaturian. Imbued with lyrical Slavic themes, Glière’s Op. 39 (written in 1909 for violin & cello) consists of 8 charming miniatures, of which the Canzonetta is No. 4. Gounod, Charles-François (1818-1893) was an influential French composer, best known for his 1859 opera “Faust”. Gounod was privileged to spend his early formative years at the Palace of Versailles (where his family occupied an apartment due to his father’s appointment as the official artist to a member of the royal aristocracy). Later Gounod was a recipient of the prestigious Prix de Rome, which afforded him the opportunity to live for a few years in Italy (where he first read Goethe’s play “Faust” and started sketching music for the opera). For 20 years Gounod contemplated the creation of his opera “Faust”, producing one of the most performed operatic works ever, with thousands upon thousands of performances all over the world since the 19th C. “Faust” was the opera chosen for the inaugural grand opening of New York’s Metropolitan Opera in 1883 (while Gounod was still alive). The tenor’s cavatina in the Third Act “Salut! Demeure chaste et pure” (“Hail, chaste and pure home!”) reflects Faust’s admiration of Marguerite’s humble dwelling during an emotional moment of romantic yearning, showcasing Gounod’s lyricism. Having performed the prominent concertmaster solo in “Faust” many times at The Metropolitan Opera, I loved transcribing the aria for horn & violin. Guillemain, Louis-Gabriel (1705-1770), a French composer and virtuoso violinist, became one of the most sought-after performers of his time, and one of the highest-paid musicians in the court of Louis XV. Guillemain’s highly-sophisticated technical proficiency and brilliance is encoded in his published compositions, with which even Paganini appears to have been familiar, as evidenced by some motivic material published in a Guillemain opus from 1755 (a number of years before Paganini’s 1782 birth) – but quoted quite literary in one of Paganini’s violin concertos composed some 60 years after Guillemain had come up with that same tune. Surely more surprises await as Guillemain’s forgotten oeuvre is being rediscovered. We looked at Guillemain’s Opus 5, Six Sonatas for Two Violins without Bass (published in 1739), and we chose the Presto from his Fifth Sonata, Op. 5, for its sunny, joyful appeal. Handel, George Frideric (1685-1759) was a German (later British) Baroque composer, one of the most colossal figures in the entire history of music, who created immortal masterpieces. A contemporary of J.S. Bach (whom Handel never met in person), and a close friend of Georg Telemann (from whose oeuvre Handel “borrowed” ideas, just as he frequently did from countless other composers), Handel became a church organist and later worked as violinist and harpsichordist at the Hamburg Opera. At age 27 Handel relocated permanently to England, where, with a generous salary from the Queen, he composed for wealthy patrons, established several commercial opera companies and became director of the Royal Academy of Music. Among Handel’s numerous works are 42 operas, 24 oratorios, 120 cantatas, 16 keyboard suites and many concertos. Handel’s life was not devoid of paradoxical serendipity, despite his enormous success and fame. He narrowly escaped a murder attempt (where a button on his clothes took the sword’s brunt) and he survived serious injuries from a road accident, but losing his health (most probably due to lead poisoning from tainted wine) and enduring, without anesthesia, savagely-botched eye surgeries, made Handel’s last years unbearably hard. Yet even while blind, he continue to compose, with the help of dictation to assistants. In another serendipitous paradox, Handel’s London house (where he had lived 36 years), is today a museum shared between Handel and rock superstar Jimi Hendrix who had lived, in a completely different era, next door. For our album we transcribed the third movement (Allegro) from Handel’s Suite No. 7 in G minor, HVW 432. Hildegard of Bingen (c.1098 – c.1179) was a 12th C. German Benedictine abbess and an important medieval composer, also active as a philosopher, scientist, poet and writer of theological, medicinal and botanical books, in addition to having invented a constructed language – Lingua Ignota (“unknown language”) and an alternate alphabet – Litterae ignotae (a secret code which she utilized for intellectual purposes). A sickly child whose mental afflictions resulted in frequent hallucinations, at age 8 she was abandoned by her family into the hands of nuns who sheltered and educated her, whereas she blossomed into a gifted and pioneering polymath, leading her community, and corresponding with popes and emperors. Hildegard is the earliest known female composer in the history of Western classical music, having composed 70 music works with soaring melodic lines which push the boundaries of 12th C. monastic chant and hint at an organic connection between the spiritual essence and the artistic substance. The work we selected to transcribe from Hildegard’s output – “Aer enim volat” – is a breathtakingly enchanting, other-worldly miniature. Hill, Douglas is an internationally-recognized American hornist, composer, author and educator who has performed in principal horn positions with a number of orchestras and chamber groups (including the Rochester Philharmonic, the New York City Ballet Orchestra, the New York Brass Quintet and the American Brass Quintet). He served as professor of horn at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for almost 4 decades, published extensively as an author and composer, and recorded a number of CD albums. Douglas Hill’s 1998 “Elegy for Violin and Horn” was composed after the death of his mother and is an expression of the composer’s sense of profound loss. This composition is an important contribution to the repertoire of duos for violin & horn. Homes, Nick is a British-born, Argentina-based jazz-saxophonist, composer and educator, who is the driving force behind the widely-followed (262,000 YouTube subscribers) online platform Jazzduets. Not to be confused with the 1948 John Lee Hooker classic blues standard under the same title, the “Hobo Blues” composed by Nick Homes is part of his series of Jazz Duets. We have performed “Hobo Blues” in our transcription for violin & horn at the New York Chamber Music Festival. Jacquet de La Guerre, Élisabeth-Claude (1665-1729) was a French Baroque composer, singer, organist, harpsichordist, and the first woman in France to compose an opera. A prodigy since age 5 (taught by her father, an organist), she became at 15 a musician at the court of Louis XIV. As a female professional musician of the 17th C., she was held in high esteem, and, at the age of 22 had her collection of harpsichord suites published in 1687, which was of significance, as harpsichord compositions were rarely published in France during the 17th C., even by male composers. Her five�act opera, Céphale et Procris was also published in the 17th C., in the year of its premiere, 1694. She also composed cantatas, a ballet and a cycle of trio sonatas. Her legacy was regarded very highly by her contemporaries, and in 1732 her biographical entry was included among elite musicians in the influential publication Le Parnasse françois (The French Parnassus) right next to Marin Marais and directly below Lully, marking her prominent presence in the male-dominated world of music. Her surviving compositions probably represent only a fraction of her actual output. The Sonata No. 2 in D Major is part of her cycle of 6 Violin Sonatas, dedicated to Louis XIV and performed in front of the king in the year of publication 1707. We transcribed for violin & horn the fourth movement – Presto from Violin Sonata No. 2 in D Major. Kitamura, Yui is a Japanese-born, New York-based composer and arranger, photographer and graphic designer. She works in many various styles, including orchestral music, classical, jazz, pop, film, and theatre. Her works are often actualized in collaborations with dancers, actors, and animators. Kitamura’s original compositions and arrangements are garnering international attention with concerts in Asia, Europe, and North America. Her works have been performed at such venues as New York’s Carnegie Hall and Lincoln Center, Berlin’s Akademie der Künste, Kiev’s National Catholic Cathedral, and Tokyo’s Sumida Triphony Hall and Suntory Hall. Her music was nominated for a Hollywood Music in Media Award in the classical/orchestral genre. She is Artistic Director of MuSE (Multicultural Sonic Evolution), a musicians’ group creating unique concerts and shows with artists from different fields. Kitamura’s composition for violin & horn “A Bird and a Hawthorn Tree” was written for us and we have performed it at Carnegie Hall during the New York Chamber Music Festival. Leclair, Jean-Marie (1697-1764) was a prominent French 18th C. violinist, composer and ballet dancer (professionally employed at age 25 in Italy as solo ballet dancer and ballet master at the Teatro Regio in Turin, while also simultaneously pursuing a career as a violinist and composer). Hailed as the “father of the French violin school” who stood “on the threshold of Classicism”, Leclair was influenced and inspired by his close friendship with the Italian virtuoso violinist Locatelli, and he also mirrored much of Vivaldi’s and Corelli’s styles composing a multitude of instrumental and stage works, including an opera. After abandoning ballet dancing in favor of concentrating on violin performance, Leclair accepted a series of leading positions, including as music director in the court of Louis XV. At age 67 Leclair was tragically stabbed to death in his own house, and his murder has never been solved. We transcribed for horn & violin the joyous third movement Allegro from Leclair’s 1730 Sonata in A Major for 2 Violins, Op. 3, No. 2. Ligeti, György (1923-2006) was an innovative Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary avant-garde music. Ligeti was born in Transylvania into a Hungarian-Jewish family which was annihilated in Nazi concentration camps, with only his mother surviving Auschwitz, while György Ligeti himself was confined at a forced labor camp. A great�grandnephew of Leopold Auer (world-renowned violin pedagogue and teacher of Heifetz), Ligeti studied with Kodály at the Liszt Academy in Budapest, where Ligeti later was also a faculty member (teaching harmony and counterpoint), before fleeing to Austria after the Soviets brutalized Hungary to quash the uprising against the communist regime. Before his escape Ligeti had mainly created transcriptions of Hungarian and Romanian folk music (“In 1949…I learned how to transcribe folksongs from wax cylinders at the Folklore Institute in Bucharest, Romania”), while his modernist works were, at the time, considered non-conforming, therefore they were largely apocryphal. In the West, after working with Stockhausen on electronic music and serialism, Ligeti held teaching positions in Sweden, Germany and the United States, and he experimented with electronic textures, machine automation, tonal and rhythmical distortions. Familiar with additive and uneven rhythms since his studies with Kodály and his own ethnomusicological research, Ligeti employed asymmetrical meters in a number of his later works (notably in his Horn Trio and in his Violin Concerto). Having performed and/or recorded several of Ligeti’s chamber works (including his Horn Trio, and his recently-discovered 1946 Duo for Violin and Piano which I presented in its American premiere in 2023, together with pianist Thomas Weaver), I recall playing Ligeti’s Chamber Concerto for 13 instrumentalists at Carnegie Hall with the MET Chamber Ensemble under James Levine: a score for 13 concertante soloists, heard together, yet individually, in various rhythms and speeds, with unfocused intervals. Ligeti’s 1950 “Baladă şi Joc” (“Ballad & Dance”), composed before Ligeti immigrated to Austria, is nothing like his later works. Originally composed for 2 violins, it is based on Romanian folk tunes, recalling the Bartók/Kodály sphere of stylized folk motifs. We presented our arrangement of Ligeti’s haunting “Baladă şi Joc” at the New York Chamber Music Festival. Machaut, Guillaume de (c.1300 -1377) was a French medieval poet and composer, dominating the ars nova style and regarded as the most significant European composer of the 14th C., who reached the pinnacle of the troubadour tradition and, through his 400 poems, influenced leading poets such as Geoffrey Chaucer. Employed for several decades as a church official and a secretary to the King of Bohemia, Machaut survived the Black Death epidemic and devoted himself to creating mostly secular music. Composing in a multitude of styles, Machaut revolutionized the motet and the secular song, especially the forms of rondeau, ballade and virelai (a succession of rhymed stanzas). Machaut’s virelai “Douce Dame Jolie” (“Sweet Lovely Lady”) is one of the best known medieval melodies. Marais, Marin (1656-1728), a French Baroque composer, was the pre-eminent viola da gamba virtuoso of his era. He studied with Jean-Baptiste Lully, and conducted Lully’s operas. The son of a humble shoemaker, Marais was appointed as “the King’s Regular Violist” at the Versailles royal court. He was one of the first to create program music, attempting to depict extra-musical narratives (in his work “The Bladder-Stone Operation” Marais explains “The patient is bound with silk cords” and “He screamed”). Marais’ work “Le Basque”, a famous miniature (from Marais’ “Five Old French Dances” for viola da gamba & continuo), is based on a lively Baroque dance. In France “courir comme un Basque” has the meaning of “swift-footed, running like a hare”. This piece, in our time often an encore, was recorded by iconic flutist James Galway, and was performed by the legendary 20th C. hornist Dennis Brain at the Edinburgh Festival just a week before his untimely death. In that famous August 24, 1957 appearance, Dennis Brain introduced Marais’ “Le Basque” thus to the audience: “a little French dance which also happens to be the shortest piece I know”. Our violin & horn arrangement was performed by us at Carnegie Hall during the New York Chamber Music Festival. Massenet, Jules Émile Frédéric (1842-1912) was a leading French opera composer of Romantic music, who won the Prix de Rome and composed 30 operas, 200 songs and many orchestral works. Massenet was for 18 years professor of composition at the Paris Conservatoire, during which time he taught Chausson and Pierné, and composed his 1894 opera Thaïs which features the famous “Méditation”. Composed by Massenet as an instrumental entr’acte in Act II, this lyrical intermezzo exists separately from the opera, remaining part of the standard violin repertory, recorded by many artists (even during Massenet’s lifetime: by Thibaud in 1905 and by Kreisler in 1910), and it is often arranged for other instruments. I have performed it under various circumstances, including at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. during the wedding of opera star Denyce Graves, and as part of a choreographed pantomime in Europe, as well as for an audience of 5000 in Chicago (as soloist with the Grant Park Symphony, of which I was Concertmaster during my summer vacations from the Metropolitan Opera). Our transcription for violin & horn has been performed by us at Carnegie Hall. Morley, Thomas (1557-1602) was a 16th C. composer, organist, poet, editor, printer of sheet music and the first great madrigalist in England. Oxford-educated, he held a number of positions as organist in cathedrals, including St. Paul’s Cathedral in London. One of the highly-esteemed musicians of his time, Morley was the most eminent composer of secular music in Elizabethan England. Morley set to music verses by Shakespeare, whose contemporary he was, and he authored and published the book “Plaine and Easie Introduction to Practicall Musicke” which is to this day consulted as a source of information from that musical epoch. Morley’s Fantasie for Two Voices “La Rondinella” (from Nine Canzonets) was composed in 1595. Mozart, Wolfgang Amadeus (1756-1791) was a composer of the Classical era, whose legacy of masterpieces is the culmination of perfection, reigning unsurpassed to this day. A child prodigy since infancy, he composed from age 5 and toured Europe performing for royalty, achieving fame, but no financial security. Dying early, he composed, in his 35 years on earth, over 600 works, among which many symphonies, operas and concertos, all of them meticulously formulated and immensely beautiful. The word “genius” does not begin to describe Mozart’s abilities, from his phenomenal photographic memory, to his amazing performing and composing skills, to his astonishing pace of productivity. Having endured for years, since early childhood, primitive travel conditions and near-fatal long illnesses while being exhibited by his father at royal courts as a child-wonder, Mozart nevertheless composed, aged 8, his first symphony, and, at age 11, wrote not just one but two operas. He created during his short life a total of 22 operas and at least 41 (possibly 68, according to latest research) symphonies. In Mozart’s last year of existence, he had just began to recover financially and pay off his debts, when a fatal illness silenced him forever. He was buried in a modest grave, with only a few attending his funeral. Our transcription of the Rondo from Mozart’s 1783 Duo No.1, K.423 (originally for violin & viola) has been performed by us throughout North America and Europe. Piazzolla, Ástor (1921-1992) was the foremost composer and ambassador of tango music, who made it his life’s mission to bring the signature music genre of Argentina from the dance halls and clubs onto the concert stages around the world. Born in Argentina, Piazzolla spent the formative years of his childhood in New York City’s Greenwich Village, soaking up influences from Bach to jazz, becoming a virtuoso on the bandoneon (a type of button accordion that is the principal voice of tango), and studying classical music repertoire with a student of Rachmaninoff, while also listening to the records of Carlos Gardel. In later years Piazzolla studied with Ginastera in Argentina and with Nadia Boulanger in Paris, taking to heart Boulanger’s advice to find his own voice by delving into what he so loved and deeply understood – the tango. Piazzolla’s Tango Nuevo style utilized urban sounds, dissonance, metric shifts, complex counterpoint, but these innovations spelled a departure from the classical tango style that had been a proud source of national identity. At the time, the tango purists in Argentina were incensed at such radical changes. Piazzolla received death threats. Even the government criticized Piazzolla’s tango reforms in the 1960s. But the rest of the world embraced Piazzolla’s works, the popularity of which exploded globally. He left behind nearly 3000 compositions, sought out by musicians in every genre, fulfilling Piazzolla’s dream – to transport the tango from the dance floors to the concert halls. The iconic 1974 “Libertango” (symbolizing Piazzolla’s liberation from the traditional tango style), is one of his best known compositions, which we transcribed for violin & horn from the original Piazzolla version. Piazzolla composed his “S.V.P. (S’il Vous Plaît)” 20 years before “Libertango” – in 1955, around the time he studied with Boulanger in Paris. I transcribed for violin & horn “S.V.P.” from the original Piazzolla version, as a tribute to the tango pianist and arranger Octavio Brunetti (1975-2014), with whom I performed Piazzolla repertoire on 2 continents and with whom I recorded 2 albums of Piazzolla music. Octavio Brunetti was hailed by the New York Philharmonic as “the inheritor of Piazzolla’s mantle”. Pleyel, Ignace Joseph (1757-1831) was an Austrian-French composer, music publisher and manufacturer of world�renowned pianos, whose name still graces the legendary performing arts center Salle Pleyel in Paris. Pleyel studied with Haydn, while living in Haydn’s household (Haydn mentored Pleyel and even incorporated in one of his operas some material composed by Pleyel). Pleyel became Kapellmeister at the Strasbourg Cathedral, and later settled in Paris, founding a publishing business (issuing 4000 music works) and a piano-building company, while also gaining great popularity as composer. We chose for its meditative character the Andante from Pleyel’s Grand Duo Op. 69 No. 3 (originally for violin & viola). Purcell, Henry (1659-1695) was one of the finest English composers who influenced numerous performing artists and composers beyond his 17th C. epoch. He worked as organist of Westminster Abbey and composed a number of masterpieces. Purcell’s untimely death at age 36 left his stage work “The Indian Queen” (Z.630) mostly unfinished. The aria “I attempt from love’s sickness to fly” from “The Indian Queen” (Act 3, Movement 17) is one of Purcell’s most enduring compositions as a standalone recital piece. Our violin & horn arrangement of Purcell’s “I attempt from love’s sickness to fly” has been presented by us at Carnegie Hall. Raga Desh is a Hindustani raga originating in the 16th C. and belonging to the Khamaj thaat. It was often used in the oeuvre of polymath and Nobel Prize laureate Rabindranath Tagore. My 2025 composition “Kissed by the Rain” is based on Raga Desh. I was inspired to create a raga-based composition having performed on 2 continents with the world-renowned Indian sarodist Amjad Ali Khan (including on 4 tours of India), and recording with him several albums for sarod & violin (one of which received Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards and another debuted at No.3 on the Billboard Charts). The world-music magazine Songlines praised as “among the best” my contribution to East-West collaborations in my albums with Amjad Ali Khan. Rameau, Jean-Philippe (1683-1764) was an important 18th C. French Baroque composer and music theorist, who succeeded Lully in dominance in the sphere of French opera, became a leading harpsichord composer (along with Couperin) and established himself as the greatest ballet composer of all time. A professional organist for almost 30 years, Rameau was at first a reluctant composer – a late-bloomer who didn’t write operas until his fifties, and didn’t find major recognition until his sixties (when he was appointed “royal court composer” and given a hefty pension). Rameau revolutionized harmony (earning, with his Treatise as theorist, the nickname “the Isaac Newton of music”) and he became a master of orchestration. We transcribed for violin & horn Rameau’s “L’Egyptienne”, from his 9-movement Suite in G Major for harpsichord, published in the 1727 volume Nouvelles suites de piéces de clavecin, RCT6. Ramey, Phillip is an American (Morocco-based) composer, pianist, author and program editor for the New York Philharmonic, which commissioned and premiered Phillip Ramey’s Horn Concerto (with Philip Myers as soloist) to celebrate its 150th anniversary. The author of an award-winning biography of Irving Fine, along with numerous program notes for the New York Philharmonic and hundreds of liner notes for recordings, Ramey’s musical output comprises various orchestral works and a series of instrumental concerti, along with chamber and vocal scores, and a sizable body of solo-piano works that includes the, written for Horowitz, Leningrad Rag. Ramey created a substantial amount of music with horn, inspired by his muse Philip Myers, and also, in later years, Howard Wall. The 2017 album of Ramey’s music for horn (comprised of world-premiere recordings featuring Philip Myers, Howard Wall, Elmira Darvarova and Virginia Perry Lamb) debuted as No.1 in Chamber Music on Amazon, and reached No. 23 on the Billboard Charts. Raum, Elizabeth has established herself as one of Canada’s most eminent composers, whose music is played all over the world. The recipient of a multitude of awards, she is a prolific composer (4 operas, over 80 chamber pieces, 18 vocal works, choral works including an oratorio, several ballets, concerti and major orchestral works). As champions of Elizabeth Raum’s music we have performed compositions by her throughout North America and Europe, and have recorded (together with pianist Thomas Weaver) her Horn Trio “Pantheon”. Also, Howard Wall registered the world�premiere recording of Elizabeth Raum’s Idiom for Solo Horn. Elizabeth Raum’s “Earth” is the second movement from her 4-movement work “Four Elements for violin and horn”, which the composer sent to us for consideration. Salve Regina (“Hail Queen”) is a Catholic Church antiphon in 2 variants (solemn and simple) attributed to the 11th C. German monk Hermann of Reichenau (solemn variant) and the 11th C. French bishop Adhémar de Monteil (simple type). No fewer than 150 composers throughout the centuries have written Salve Regina compositions, based on either the simple or the solemn type. For our compilation Salve Regina x 10, from Reichenau to Puccini, we selected material by the following 10 composers (in the order of appearance): Hermann von Reichenau, Josquin de Prez, Giovanni Battista Pergolesi, George Frideric Handel, Adhémar de Monteil, Felix Mendelssohn, Nicola Porpora, Franz Schubert, Domenico Scarlatti, Giacomo Puccini. Schubert, Franz (1797-1828) was an Austrian composer who, despite living only 31 years, amassed 1500 compositions, including 9 symphonies, many chamber and solo piano works, and 600 art songs (becoming the greatest art song composer). One of his last works was the posthumously-published 13-song cycle Schwanengesang D.957 (Swan Song), in which the fourth movement is “Ständchen” (a.k.a. Serenade). It was arranged for violin & horn by the Romanian composer Ioan Dobrinescu. Shostakovich, Dmitri (1906-1975) was a major Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist whose First Symphony was a huge international success in 1927, conducted in Berlin by Bruno Walter, and in Philadelphia by Stokowski (who also registered the world-premiere recording). But the Soviets, alarmed by Shostakovich’s success in the West, targeted him with denunciation attacks, especially after Stalin fiercely disliked the controversial opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk. From then on Shostakovich was terrorized and suppressed by the Soviet government throughout his life. A bit of easing of the harassment occurred with Stalin’s demise in 1953, and that’s when Shostakovich composed his Tenth Symphony in E minor, Op. 93 in which Shostakovich imbued the Second Movement with savagery, suggestive of Stalin, while in the Third Movement the composer encoded his own initials DSCH (establishing his resilient survival) and, in the horn calls expressed the so-called “Elmira motif”, symbolizing his feelings for a student with whom he had been enchanted – Elmira Nazirova. Strauss, Richard (1864-1949) is one of the most highly-recognized composers in the entire Western music literature. His operatic and symphonic works continue to be cherished as sophisticated masterpieces. Born into a musical family (his father was a leading horn virtuoso), Strauss started composing early in life (aged 6) and by age 18 he had already amassed 150 works. Eventually he authored 300 compositions, becoming the celebrated successor to Wagner and Liszt, while he also gained eminence as conductor, appointed as music director of the Royal Court Opera in Berlin and of the Vienna State Opera. As a wedding present to his wife, Strauss composed in 1894 “Morgen!” as one of his Four Songs, Op. 27. Transcribing for violin & horn this heartbreakingly-beautiful piece was a privilege, as we treasure the occasions in which we have performed music by Strauss throughout our careers, myself at the Metropolitan Opera, and Howard Wall with two of the world’s greatest orchestras – the New York Philharmonic and the Philadelphia Orchestra. Stravinsky, Igor (1882-1971) was a Russian-born composer who became a citizen of France and the United States. Regarded as one of the most important and pioneering 20th C. composers, he is best known for his riot-causing ballet “The Rite of Spring”. Time Magazine included Stravinsky in its list of 100 most influential people of the 20th C. Impeded in his ambitions first by his own father (an eminent opera singer who discouraged Stravinsky’s musical instincts) and later by his teacher Rimsky-Korsakov (who resented Stravinsky’s modernist style and whose widow and son were quick to break with Stravinsky as soon as his meteoric success catapulted him to fame), Stravinsky was a striking innovator in anything he created. His 1918 “L’Histoire du Soldat” includes the most artistic Tango ever composed, before the “tango revolutionary” Piazzolla was even born. Stravinsky’s 1928 “Apollo” represents a groundbreaking blend between neoclassical ideas and modernism. Telemann, Georg Philipp (1681-1767) was a distinguished German composer, the most prolific ever, with over 3000 documented works (Piazzolla came a close second, with “nearly” 3000 compositions). Telemann’s close friend Handel joked that Telemann “could write a church piece in 8 parts with the same expedition another would write a letter”. Telemann composed more works than the combined total output of Bach, Handel, Vivaldi, Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and Brahms. This happened in spite of Telemann’s family disapproving of his musical activities and pressuring him to obtain a degree in law (which he did). Unstoppably musical, Telemann hurled himself into composing and performing, accepting a multitude of positions in various locations, including as Kantor at the Thomaskirche in Leipzig (where Telemann was chosen over Bach), and as Music Director of the Hamburg Opera. We transcribed the Allegro from Telemann’s 1738 Canonic Duo No. 1 in G Major TWV 40:118. Thompson, Bruce (1937-2021) was an American composer and music professor at several universities. A graduate of Indiana University, he wrote various concert pieces for horn and for brass trio. His Un Diario Español, Página 92 is a brilliant duet (originally for 2 horns), based on Spanish motifs and flamenco bravura. We have performed it on 2 continents and at Carnegie Hall. Wallen, Errollyn, a Belize-born British multi award-winning composer, is the first Black woman appointed Master of the King’s Music by King Charles III in his first appointment to the post. Wallen was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire for her services to music. Named as one of the world’s Top 20 most performed living classical composers, her prolific output includes 20 operas. Wallen studied composition at the universities of London and Cambridge and she is professor of composition at Trinity Laban, and president of the Royal Society of Musicians. She has been commissioned by the BBC, Royal Opera House, Wigmore Hall, Welsh National Opera, among others. The Philharmonia Orchestra premièred her “Mighty River” to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the Abolition of Slavery. Howard Wall’s transcription of Errollyn Wallen’s movement No. 3 from “Five Postcards” (originally composed for violin & viola) was premiered by us at Carnegie Hall. —Program Notes by Elmira Darvarova, ©2026 GRAMMY®-nominated, award-winning (Gold Medal at the Global Music Awards in 2017 and 2018), a concert violinist since the age of 4, and hailed by American Record Guide as "marvelous in the tradition of Heifetz", ELMIRA DARVAROVA caused a sensation, becoming the first ever (and so far only) woman-concertmaster in the history of the Metropolitan Opera, where she performed with the greatest conductors of our time, including the legendary Carlos Kleiber. A student of Josef Gingold and Henryk szeryng, she can be heard on numerous CDs including the world premiere recording of Vernon Duke's concerto with the ORF Vienna Radio Symphony, and a CD with music by René de Castera, named a Record of the Year 2015 by Music Web International), and one of her recent albums debuted as No. 3 on Billboard Charts. She has appeared on the stages of 5 continents, has given master classes worldwide, and has performed chamber music with James Levine, János Starker, Gary Karr, Pascal Roge, Vassily Lobanov and Fernando Otero. Praised by The Strad for her "intoxicating tonal beauty and beguilingly sensuous phrasing" and "silky-smooth voluptuous tone", she was featured in a Gramophone Magazine article about her world-premiere recording of Vernon Duke's concerto (written for Heifetz in 1940). HOWARD WALL was a long-time member of The New York Philharmonic, where he joined the horn section in 1994, after having been a member of The Philadelphia Orchestra for almost 20 years, and a former member of the Phoenix and Denver Symphony Orchestras. He made his Carnegie Hall debut at age 19 performing Schumann's Konzertstück, and appeared as soloist with the New York Philharmonic as well as on New York Philharmonic tours in Europe and South America. An avid chamber music performer, he was a member of the Philadelphia Chamber Brass, and appeared regularly at the New York Philharmonic Ensembles series and the Very Young Composers series throughout his New York Philharmonic tenure. He currently performs regularly at the New York Chamber Music Festival, and tours internationally in a duo with his wife, former MET Opera concertmaster Elmira Darvarova. Wall can be heard on a multitude of CD albums with solo, duo and trio repertoire, and his recordings have been praised for his "legendary low register", "impeccable intonation and stellar virtuosity", where "every note is a gem". Howard Wall was among the performers awarded Gold Medal and Top Honors at the 2018 Global Music Awards.