Chopin: Funeral March - Interlude

It is said that the first meeting Chopin had with the novelist George Sand went like this:
–What a repulsive woman Sand is! –Chopin said to a friend. –I'm inclined to doubt it.
Almost simultaneously, on the other side of the room, Sand whispered to a friend:
–That Monsieur Chopin, is he a girl?

It was the fall of 1836 and both attended a soiree in a Parisian hotel, Chopin having been invited by Liszt, and Sand by Marie d'Agoult, Liszt's lover at that time. The evening was enjoyable and ended up without any reason to suppose that Frédéric and Sand would see each other again.
But life is full of surprises, and after a few months, the writer who wore trousers and smoked cigars could not get Frédéric out of her mind. Her beloved Chip, Chop, or Chopinski, as she began to call him later, gladly allowed himself to be cherished.

It was only in October 1838 when, after several attempts, Sand finally managed to take Frédéric to a vacation in Mallorca, accompanied by her children.
Everything went swimmingly until the Mallorcan summer changed dramatically in late November and Frédéric, George Sand, and her children were forced to spend the day within their calamitous rooms.

A gratifying Interlude
In January, the weather was unbearable. Ill sheltered from the rain and the wind that raged outside, Chopin composed, Sand wrote and, surely, the children were bored to death. But we could imagine that in the evenings they might have read together under the light of a candle and, who knows, an unexpected instant of grace occurred. All of a sudden, Frédéric might have rushed to the pitiful little piano (the only available before the arrival of the piano sent off to him by his friend Pleyel) to create the Interlude that goes right in the middle of the Funeral March, which, according to some, was composed during that horrible summer. Precisely those notes have now become the most suitable way of saying goodbye, a century and a half later, to JF Kennedy for example, or, who would have thought, to Stalin and Brezhnev.

It was also performed at Chopin's funeral, in addition to the Mozart's Requiem, which the departed had expressly requested.
The Interlude, quite a finding for its quiet beauty just in the midst of such solemnity, is preceded by a low octave, immediately following the first part of the most celebrated melody.


Composing at least one funeral march was de rigueur for the musicians of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Whilst living with George Sand, with whom he finally spent eight splendid years, Chopin has given the world the most famous of them all, the one that was going to take a life of its own. This was not always true. The piece was added as the third movement of the Sonata in B flat minor, composed in 1839. Chopinski was 29. He had returned from Mallorca more dead than alive but had already recovered.

You are invited to listen to Chopin's Funeral March, knowing that the very same notes were heard by those who marched behind the coffin of Frédéric from the Madeleine Church to the cemetery of Pére-Lachaise, Paris, one hundred and sixty years ago. (The Interlude begins at 3:00).

Chopin's Funeral March - Arthur Rubinstein

Dear visitor, if you like this article, we'll be very thankful if you share it on Facebook or Twitter, or recommend it on Google with an easy click

Chopin: Nocturne Op 9 No 2

Chopin's portrait painted by Maria Wodzinska

Frédéric Chopin knew the Wodzinsky family since childhood and in the summer of 1835, he was invited to Dresden to spend a short time with them. There he met Maria again, the youngest daughter. He remembered her as a child who used to annoy the grown-ups by pulling faces at them or rowdily running around. Now, she was a beautiful girl of sixteen who liked painting and played the piano. Frédéric, who had already turned twenty-five, reciprocated the hospitality by giving piano lessons to Maria every afternoon.
The maestro asked the young girl to have her music book at hand on the piano, in order to write down any musical ideas that would arise at any time.

A page of this book is shown in the picture: a sketch of the Nocturne in E flat, Opus 9 No 2, in its early stages. Obviously, it is just a germ of an idea: barely three bars of the melody.
Frédéric will add later the accompaniment making it possible that these scrawled and hard-to-read signs could sound like this:

Undoubtedly, a great musical idea!
A friend of mine has suggested, maliciously, that it was Maria, not Chopin, the author of the sketch, perhaps responding to Frédéric mellifluously suggesting: "Maria... what if you improvise something for me in E flat? Just a couple of bars..., think of a serene melody that comes from the bottom of your heart!"

We know that Maria was able to compose (incidentally, we can see here the way she painted). My friend went on to say that Chopin, reprehensible, would have surreptitiously copied the bars in the notebook, as she raised her eyes to heaven for inspiration.
We don't believe this to be the truth.
Anyway, it was Frédéric who later ended the composition in Paris.

Here we have, in four and half minutes, the most popular romantic piece for piano of all times.
The performance is by the young Chinese pianist Tiffany Poon.

Dear visitor, if you like this article, we'll be very thankful if you recommend it, with an easy click

Schubert: Impromptu No 3 Opus 90

Franz Schubert is the first great musician to born in Vienna. The son of a schoolteacher of peasant ancestry, and of a maid whose father was a locksmith, his modest origin was no obstacle to lead a pleasant childhood in the capital of the empire, a city that, with few exceptions, the little Franz never left since his birth in 1797 until his early death, at age 31, in 1828.

These are precisely the years when our beloved Beethoven lived in Vienna. Consequently, for at least twenty years both musicians lived in the same city, and even though Schubert venerated Beethoven, interestingly that they never met, although there seems to have been some rapprochement in the last months of the great master's life.

The reason is simple enough. They had common friendships belonging to circles of different social, cultural and political significance. Whilst the young Ludwig would be hunting the daughters of his noble friends, little Franz (only five feet in height and shortsighted), barely could reach to look a little beyond its narrow surroundings and fixed his eyes, when sixteen, in the younger sister of his brother Ignaz’s woman.

Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) 

The four Impromptus, opus 90, composed in the summer of 1827, are perhaps the "small pieces" of Schubert that have gained more popularity. (In the cataloguing of a gentleman with a surname Deutsch, they are identified as "D 899".) The "form" impromptu, already widely used by that time and characterized by being completely free, almost an improvisation, was going to acquire great boom and presence throughout the romantic period.

Impromptu No 3, Opus 90 - Vladimir Horowitz

The right hand does almost all the work here, with the little finger or "fifth finger" in charge of the melody and the others engaged in the arpeggiated accompaniment, which must maintain, let us say, a "low profile" throughout the piece. The left hand holds the bass, becoming protagonist at times by adding a small amount of drama to this essentially, simple piece.

The rendering of the maestro Vladimir Horowitz has been chosen not only for his pianistic excellence but because it constitutes a unique overflow of commitment, sympathy and good vibes.

.....................................................................................................................

Dear visitor, if you like this article, we'll be very thankful if you share it on Facebook or Twitter, or recommend it on Google with an easy click

Beethoven: The Immortal Beloved - Appassionata Mov 3

It is not a hasty statement to point out that Beethoven was in love with Josephine von Brunswick for at least 14 years, from the time she was his pupil, around 1798, until 1812, the year in which the letter to the Immortal Beloved is supposed to be dated, according to scholars. This does not mean he didn't try to deploy his skills as a lover elsewhere and certainly one can't ignore his attempted flirtations with Bettina Brentano, Therese Malfatti and other girls of the time.

Joséphine, though a widow with four children, remarried in 1808. An offense against poor Ludwig? A permanent abandonment? No, not necessarily. Josephine was obligated to seek security for their children, and she believed she had found it with a certain Count von Stackelberg; she was most likely motivated solely by this goal, since, if we consider it in terms of happiness, this marriage (which added three more children to Josephine's offspring) turned out worse than her previous one.

And perhaps this was why Beethoven kept hope alive for so many years, although Therese and her other sister took care to contain his enthusiasm in a judicious, cold and realistic framework, because of his social class and origin.

Letter to the Immortal Beloved

The second and third fragments of the letter show a very complex loving relationship, fraught with enormous difficulties for its concrete realization. Perhaps this is sufficient to infer that indeed the Immortal Beloved Letter, surprisingly never sent, is addressed to Josephine von Brunswick, a widow of von Deym, a divorcee from von Stackelberg, and a mother of seven children to boot.

Extracts:

"Monday evening, 6 July

"You suffer, you, my dearest creature. Just now I perceive that letters must be posted first thing early. Mondays — Thursdays — the only days, when the post goes from here to K. You suffer — oh! Where I am, you are with me, with me and you, I shall arrange that I may live with you. What a life!

"So! Without you — pursued by the kindness of the people here and there, whom I mean — to desire to earn just as little as they earn — humility of man towards men — it pains me — and when I regard myself in connection with the Universe, what I am, and what he is — whom one calls the greatest — and yet — there lies herein again the godlike of man. I weep when I think you will probably only receive on Saturday the first news from me — as you too love — yet I love you stronger — but never hide yourself from me. Good night — as I am taking the waters, I must go to bed. Oh God — so near! so far! Is it not a real building of heaven, our Love — but as firm, too, as the citadel of heaven.

"Good morning, on 7 July

"Even in bed my ideas yearn towards you, my Immortal Beloved, here and there joyfully, then again sadly, awaiting from Fate, whether it will listen to us. I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all. Yes, I have determined to wander about for so long far away, until I can fly into your arms and call myself quite at home with you, can send my soul enveloped by yours into the realm of spirits — yes, I regret, it must be. You will get over it all the more as you know my faithfulness to you; never another one can own my heart, never — never! O God, why must one go away from what one loves so, and yet my life in W. as it is now is a miserable life. Your love made me the happiest and unhappiest at the same time. At my actual age I should need some continuity, sameness of life — can that exist under our circumstances? Angel, I just hear that the post goes out every day — and must close therefore, so that you get the L. at once. Be calm — love me — today — yesterday.

"What longing in tears for you — You — my Life — my All — farewell. Oh, go on loving me — never doubt the faithfullest heart

"Of your beloved

L

Ever thine.

Ever mine.

Ever ours."

It almost makes us want to cry. And we can not help but wonder, like Thérese, in her diary: 

"Why did not my sister Josephine, as widow Deym, take him as her husband? Josephine’s soul-mate! They were born for each other..."

Sonata Appassionata - Third Movement - Claudio Arrau

It's in the middle of the battle for this elusive love, in 1804, when Beethoven composed the Sonata Appassionata, which he dedicated to Josephine's brother, and whose third and final movement we are now listening to. Hectic in nature, the movement reflects a kind of restlessness that seems to never end and, according to some, it can 'take your breath away.' For this very reason, I love Master Arrau's expression while receiving the applause after his performance. He looks like a child who'd just recited a couple of verses in grammar school.

.........................................................................................................................

Dear visitor, if you like this article, we would be grateful if you share it on Facebook, Twitter or recommend it on Google with an easy click

Beethoven: The Immortal Beloved - Appassionata Mov 2

The year of composition of the Appassionata Sonata, 1804, is also the year of death of Count von Deym, leaving Josephine a widow with four children and little money. The marriage had been clearly unhappy, so Beethoven's offering regarding sympathize with her in her grief and, as far as possible, to take their relationship to a new level, must have been enthusiastically received by the young widow. While her suitor did not come from the nobility, he was, however, the most prestigious composer in the capital of the mighty Habsburg Empire, the city of Vienna.

Had Josephine remained a childless widow, Beethoven could have had a certain hope, although modest. The real problem had to do with the four children, who, according to the norms in effect at the time, should necessarily be fed, cared for and educated by a personage of nobility.

Sonata No 23 in F minor, opus 57 (Appassionata)
2nd movement: Andante con motto [First movement, here]
A set of variations. At the end, a sudden reprise of the calm original theme leads without pause to the third movement, a savage and impassioned finale.
At the piano, Valentina Lisitsa, during a rehearsal in Vienna.

The Immortal Beloved
Still, the relationship with Josephine would last until at least the year 1812 the date generally accepted as the date the famous Letter to the Immortal Beloved, addressed to an unnamed recipient, was written. Some letters exchanged by Ludwig and Josephine before 1812 are known, at least those written between 1804 and 1807. They have been discovered almost recently and as they reveal an atmosphere quite similar to the letter "To the Immortal Beloved " it is today estimated with a certain degree of realism that the addressee of the latter is indeed Josephine.

The letter, ten pages long, was initiated on "July 6 morning", resumed the afternoon and finished the next morning. The author, on a trip from a place that is not appointed to another that is not either, is writing from an inn or lodge he has reached after a very long and exhausting trip. The language used allows us to take a look at the author's personality and peer into human relationships that can not but surprise us because of a "romantic" nuance that today we would not hesitate to qualify as flamboyant or whimsical.

6 July morning
"My angel, my all, my own self — only a few words today, and that too with pencil (with yours) — only till tomorrow is my lodging definitely fixed. What abominable waste of time in such things — why this deep grief, where necessity speaks?

"Can our love persist otherwise than through sacrifices, than by not demanding everything? Canst thou change it, that thou are not entirely mine, I not entirely thine? Oh, God, look into beautiful Nature and compose your mind to the inevitable. Love demands everything and is quite right, so it is for me with you, for you with me — only you forget so easily, that I must live for you and for me — were we quite united, you would notice this painful feeling as little as I should . . .

". . . We shall probably soon meet, even today I cannot communicate my remarks to you, which during these days I made about my life — were our hearts close together, I should probably not make any such remarks. My bosom is full, to tell you much — there are moments when I find that speech is nothing at all. Brighten up — remain my true and only treasure, my all, as I to you. The rest the gods must send, what must be for us and shall.

Your faithful

Ludwig"

... to be continued...

(the 3rd movement, and the remaining letters) 

Beethoven: Appassionata Sonata - Mov I

Composed around 1804, when Beethoven was 34 years old and deafness had begun to afflict him severely, the Sonata No. 23, called Appassionata, was dedicated to Count Franz von Brunswick, the brother of Ludwig’s students Therese and Josephine and, lo and behold, the cousin of his first love Giulietta.
Because of its boldness and novelty, the sonata was a breakthrough in piano composition; in addition to its enormous technical difficulty, it is characterized by the use of the full range of the instrument and the powerful interplay of the lowest notes. It is no coincidence that the Sonata has been written in the key of F minor, being "F" the lowest note on instruments of the time.

The image shows the first page of the opening movement, Allegro assai (quite fast). Obviously, the red circles are mine and not Beethoven’s. With them, I wish to highlight the use in this Sonata of the musical motif that would make Beethoven well known in the following centuries: the famous "ba ba ba boom", which some years later he would employ to open his Fifth Symphony.
The first time the motif appears is at 32 seconds into the piece, on the lower notes. It reappears, tempestuously, some minutes later to return towards the end of the movement with dramatic intensity.

Daniel Barenboim, live from Berlin, 2006

The Brunswicks met Beethoven in Vienna in the early summer of 1799, on the occasion of a short trip that they made from his home in a nearby town. Mrs Brunswick considered it was a good idea that the girls had piano lessons with the young pianist, to increase their charm vis-a-vis eventual suitors. Thus, Therese, 24, and Josephine, 20, became students of Beethoven. This was the onset of a long relationship between the maestro and the Brunswicks.

The maestro would always maintain a cordial and very intense relationship with Therese. They used to talk about this and that and maintained a sincere friendship for many years. Whether or not Ludwig imagined something else is not clear.
However, in those years Ludwig was captivated by the beauty of Josephine. Unfortunately for the maestro, it happened that the lady, towards the end of 1799, married a certain Count von Deym, 30 years her senior –an arranged marriage managed by Mrs Brunswick.

But the Count proved to be a complete fiasco. First, he didn’t  have as much money as he pretended (or as Madame Brunswick wanted to believe), and secondly, he passed away because of pneumonia only four years after contracting the sacred bond, leaving Josephine a widow with three children and expecting a fourth.

It is likely that at that time Ludwig reconsidered his position. Whilst the marriage lasted, he had regularly taken part in parties and musical evenings at the von Deyms’s home. But when Josephine became a widow, the master of Bonn decided to get a little closer, increasing the frequency of his visits. Then, it might be possible that little by little something that was more than a simple friendship began to grow between them.

...to be continued...

Dear visitor, if you like this article, we will be grateful if you share it with an easy click