The Baden-Baden Idyll Chamber Orchestra - Digital Sheet Music

Full set of parts: Please contact Chris Gordon at [email protected] or [email protected] for further information.

'The Baden-Baden Idyll' is scored for chamber or small orchestra. It requires divisi strings, at least 2 players per part, plus oboe, clarinet in B flat and A, bassoon and french horn in F. I wrote it to 'accompany' a story I have been writing 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 an indication of how much the composer 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 mid-19th century German Romantic style although I consciously tried not to compose 'Brahms-like' music as emulating Brahms' music successfully is something I find very difficult to do. I mention in my introduction to 'The Baden-Baden Idyll' score that I imagine the idyll as 'ostensibly written by Brahms' but that idea is only meant for the purposes of the story I am writing. I did find, however, that it is quite easy to write pastiche Wagner and some 'imaginary Wagner' features in the idyll. The Idyll does quote Brahms' music and Robert Schumann's, though. There is also music with a Spanish 'flavour' which represents Pauline although she is mainly represented by the 'love theme' in A flat minor (bar 50 ff - not in the sample pages here).

Duration: 27 minutes

Instrumentation: ob., cl. in Bb and A, fag., hn. in F, vln. I, vln. II, vla. I, vla. II, vc. (all strings: a minimum of 2 players per part)