Chopin's funeral, Prelude No 4

 
According to an eyewitness, Frédéric Chopin died without suffering, between three and four in the morning of October 17, 1849. On the third day of his death, after the sculptor Clésinger took casts of his face and left hand, the autopsy was carried out by extracting the heart that will later be placed on a column in the Church of the Holy Cross, in Warsaw, thus fulfilling the express wish of the composer, made to his sister Ludwika.

The body of the "great artist Chopin" – as it was designated by Débats magazine in an article published following his death – was embalmed and then dressed and laid out again on his bed. Surrounded by flowers, he was exposed to his friends, admirers, and onlookers to say goodbye. The admirers would parade for days through the apartment of Place Vendôme, the last residence of the Polish master.

The Funeral
It was not held until October 30. The funeral ceremony began at eleven in the morning, and at noon, the coffin was carried aloft by the side aisle and placed on a high catafalque, to the sounds of its own funeral march and in the presence of the three thousand people who were taking part the Madeleine Church. Then the orchestra and choir of the Conservatory's Concert Society sang Mozart's Requiem, which had not been heard in Paris since the return of Napoleon's ashes in 1840.

Before starting the journey to the Pére Lachaise cemetery, the organist of La Madeleine dismissed Frédéric's body by playing some of his preludes, including a "plaintive, galvanized with startles, almost desperate melody". It is Prelude N ° 4 in E minor, one of the 24 Preludes of opus 28, completed in Mallorca ten years before, and which we present here in the rendition of the Chinese pianist Eric Lu.

At the grave, there were no speeches. The handful of Polish earth that Frédéric had received from his friends when he left Poland and which he kept until then in a silver goblet, was simply dropped on the coffin.

Telemann, Don Quixotte Burlesque Suite

 
The composer Georg Philipp Telemann, the most significant representative of the North German school during the first half of the 18th century, was capable of writing a four-part motet with the same ease an ordinary person writes a letter. At least, this is what his young friend Handel — four years younger than Telemann — told him, whom he met in Leipzig when, under family pressure, Telemann began law studies that he would soon abandon.

A self-taught musician
Born in 1681 in Magdeburg, a city in western Germany, on the banks of the Elbe, Georg Philipp came from a family with a strong Protestant tradition, several of whose members had been pastors. His first training was humanistic and very broad: when he was just a boy, he wrote verses in Latin, German and French. His musical training, on the other hand, has a weak base in the period in which he had to attend the cathedral school where he attended the teachings of a composer of ecclesiastical music and also a keyboard course which, interestingly enough, lasted exactly fourteen days.

The fact remains, however, that at the age of ten Georg Philipp played the flute, violin and other instruments with mastery. On the basis of the direct study of the scores of the great composers of the time, the young Telemann soon began to compose his own pieces. 

Georg P. Telemann
(1681 - 1767)

An extensive catalog
Throughout his life, the catalog of this self-taught composer was going to acquire gigantic dimensions, far surpassing, for example, the work of Vivaldi. He cultivated all kinds of genres: operas, religious cantatas and psalms, passions, oratorios, profane cantatas, and much more, to which a large number of pieces of vocal and instrumental music is added.

A great naturalness distinguishes Telemann's music, which allows it to easily reach a wide audience. The composer argued that the musician who wanted to reach a large audience should write better than one who addresses a select minority. A good example of this maxim is represented by the suite inspired by Don Quixote.

Don Quixotte Burlesque Suite
During his last years, Telemann was strongly attracted by the spirit of Cervantes's work, to the point that it served as inspiration for an opera and, from it, a Suite for string orchestra and basso continuo, known as Don Quixotte Burlesque.

Light in character, almost humorous, the Suite includes seven movements or sections:

00:00  Ouverture
03:55  Le reveille de Quixotte (The awakening of Don Quixote)
06:58  Son attaque des moulens a vent (The attack on the windmills)
08:44  Les soupirs amoureux apres la Princesse Dulcinèe (Sighs of love for Dulcinea)
12:38  Sanche Panche berné (Sancho Panza disappointed)
14:22  Le galop de Rosinante alternat, avec sequent (The gallop of Rocinante)
16:59  La couché de Quixotte (Don Quixote's dream)

The rendition, performed with period instruments, is by the New York Baroque Incorporated chamber group.

Rossini, The Barber of Seville - Overture

 
When, in 1816, the Italian composer Giovanni Paisiello learned that an opera entitled Almaviva, ossia L'inutile precauzione, was about to be premiered at the Argentina theater in Rome, he had no hesitation in gathering his cohort of adherents and attending en masse at the work premiere with the sole and express purpose of causing excesses and turning the premiere into a failure from which its author, Gioacchino Rossini, could never recover.

The truth is that Paisiello was right in behaving that way. Almost forty years ago, he had premiered an opera also based, like Rossini's, on a libretto that emerged from Beaumarchais's comedy, Le Barbier de Séville ou la Précaution inutile. The work had been widely accepted in its time. So, Paisiello regarded as a personal affront that the young Rossini, an author of "Muslim works", dared to compose a new version of the opera that had made him famous, even when he offered it with another title.

Gioachino Rossini (1792 - 1868)

An ill-fated premiere
And indeed, the first performance, on February 20, 1816, did nothing but make things easier to provoke the brawl. The premiere was full of errors and mistakes that provoked mockery and blunders from the audience, unwittingly joining to the unruly spirits of Paisiello supporters. It is even said that at a certain moment, even a cat took the stage.

However, Paisiello and his entourage were likely the main responsible for the failure, since the second performance, a few days later, was a high success, and has continued so until today, to the point that The Barber of Seville exhibits nowadays the accolade of being the most performed opera in the world.

A "borrowed" overture
The work was composed in three weeks, forcing Rossini to make use not only of arias from other operas. The overture presented here borrowed, with some orchestration changes, the overture from a previous opera, Aureliano en Palmira, which had not been well received in its time. Rossini, entirely rightly, considered that the overture was of such quality that it could not be tied to a minor work. It had to be re-released.

The rendition is by the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra conducted by the Italian maestro Maurizio Benini.

Mozart, "Eine kleine Nachtmusik"

 
Although it seems unusual to put it this way, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was for much of his life a musician who would compose "on demand." Unlike the musicians of the later Romantic era, the works that came from his pen were almost always motivated by specific commissions, either because they were intended for a specific performer or orchestra, or because they were intended to please some aristocrat or bourgeois who, by the way, wanted the work at home as soon as possible.

Mozart was obliged to write quickly, despite which he fulfilled orders in very short periods, although the pay was never enough. "A lot for what I do, very little for what I could do," he replied in writing on one occasion, upon receipt of his "fees", although this time he referred to his salary as a part-time "chamber musician" of Emperor Joseph II.

Despite all that has been said, perhaps the most popular piece by Mozart has no known recipient and it is not known why he wrote it. But we do know exactly the end date of its composition — August 10, 1787 — because that is how it appears in the catalog he began to build in February 1784, the year in which he was also working on Don Giovanni, whose entry into the catalog follows that of the Serenade No 13.

In his catalog (which he planned to end around 1800, hopefully "updated" by that time) Mozart would annotate five pieces by facing pages. On the right page he would write down the initial two or three measures of the composition, and on the left, the date, the title and the instrumentation. In the image, the Serenade entry is the last one, at the bottom of the page. What Mozart writes here does not seem like a title at all but rather a few words as a summary or reminder. He writes: "Eine kleine Nachtmusik ... [the movements] ... 2 violini, viola e basis."

The catalog entry let us know that the work has five movements, but one of them would have been lost or Mozart did not get to compose it as the piece that is heard today only has four. In addition, let us point out that the composition was never performed during the composer's lifetime.

Serenade No 13 for strings in G major - Movements:
00       Allegro
05:46  Romance
11:20  Minuet and trio
13:30  Rondo

The rendition is by the Gewandhaus Quartet, a Leipzig-based group founded in 1808, joined on this occasion by a double bass as a guest artist.

Enrique Granados, Spanish Dance No 5

 

Despite being the son of an army officer, Enrique Granados y Campiña showed signs of an enviable musical talent at an early age. Born in Lleida in 1867, when he was seven the family had to move to Barcelona, ​​where the stubborn father would get a colleague in arms, another officer, to give little Enrique his first piano and music theory lessons. Such was the learning aptitude the boy showed, that soon after his parents decided to provide him with formal musical education. It was the beginning of a road without potholes only interrupted by the hardships he had to face as a result of the economic difficulties that, after his father died, led the young Granados to become the provider of a large family.

A café pianist
Qualified by one of his teachers as the most brilliant student he had ever had, young Enrique, who at the age of ten had given his first public concerts and who in 1883 had won the Academy competition for novice pianists, had to abandon his studies to serve as a pianist in the cafés of Barcelona, ​​playing up to four or five hours a day. But simultaneously he was fortunate to be hired by a wealthy businessman as his children's teacher at a very decent salary. With that money plus the support of the businessman and other additional pesetas obtained at the cost of performing operatic rehashes in cafés, in September 1887 he went to Paris since in Spain it was not guaranteed that he would be able to complete his musical studies.

Enrique Granados (1867 - 1916)

Paris and the Twelve Dances
But shortly after arriving, he fell ill with typhoid, and when he was to apply to the Conservatory he was above the age limit for admission. For this reason, he had to take private lessons with a prominent teacher who at that time had among his disciples a short, neatly dressed student named Maurice Ravel.

Apparently, is from that time that a good part of his Twelve Spanish Dances dates, although the author once declared that most of them had been composed in 1883 when he was only sixteen. But in Paris, he did not get publishers. Back in Barcelona in 1889, he got to publish them with a prestigious house.

Spanish Dance N ° 5
The set of the Twelve Dances marks the first international recognition of Granados, receiving praises from established composers as Saint-Saëns, Massenet and Grieg. The series of twelve pieces for piano thus became one of the greatest contributions to the Spanish pianistic repertoire of the 19th century.

In a rendition by the French pianist Guillaume Coppola, the best known of all the dances is presented here, the Spanish Dance No 5, called Playera or, more properly, Andalusian, due to its undisguised flamenco feeling, underlined by the left-hand support aimed to evoke the strumming of a guitar.

Vivaldi, Concerto for guitar and strings

 
Vivaldi in St. Mark's Square

In order to lead the life that we all would want, in the 18th century you also had to do some juggling. Born in Venice as the first-born of a Venetian merchant marriage, Antonio Vivaldi came into the world at a time when the Venetian commercial monopoly of the sale of spices, merchandise and slaves, had begun to crumble. It was the result of the emergence of alternative routes to the "Silk Road" established in the High Middle Ages that connected China and Europe, with Venice as its only commercial intermediary.

In these circumstances, the Venetian merchant families were compelled to encourage in their children the inclination for the practice of a musical instrument, or the development of any artistic talent, in order to attract the European aristocracies to the city and thus establish new commercial alliances. In a relatively few years, Venice ceased to be a fiefdom of merchants who by tradition despised art in all its forms as an unprofitable activity, to become a Renaissance and cosmopolitan cultural capital, the first tourist city in history.

Antonio Lucio Vivaldi
(1678 - 1841)

Antonio's father, faced with the family's growing debts, chose to teach his son the little he had learned when, years ago, he had also worked as a musician due to similar shortages. By the way, Saint Mark's Square had become a new public square where artists showed their talents.

There, in that fledgling stage, the little musician Antonio Vivaldi made his initial training in the domain of the violin, taking home, incidentally, some coins as a result of his efforts.
Before long, his father would join him. Reasonably reliable testimonies of the time indicate that the father-son duo delighted the then "tourists", with little Antonio standing out for his ability to create beautiful melodies capable of evoking the most diverse states of mind.

Concerto for guitar and strings, in D major
Although it has been rightly said that the heyday of the concerto in the Baroque period was due in large part to the great 17th century advances in the art of violin making, maestro Vivaldi did not always entrust to a violin his works for soloist and orchestra. This is the case of this concerto, where the solo instrument is the guitar, although it was originally written for lute.

These first manifestations of what would later be the resorted and celebrated "concerto for soloist and orchestra" of the following centuries are very short duration works. The entire work lasts barely ten minutes. However, they have three movements, which inaugurate the traditional scheme: fast - slow - fast. The second movement, largo, is the most popular and recognizable (3:44).

The rendition is by maestro John Williams, accompanied by the Seville Symphony Orchestra.

Rachmaninoff, Prelude Op 23 No 5

 
The resounding failure of Sergei Rachmaninoff's First Symphony left the 24-year-old Russian composer dealing with a deep depression. His friends, fearing that at any moment he would make a fatal decision, advised him to put himself in the hands of a specialist in "life failures", that is, a "doctor of the soul".

After long months undergoing sessions of autosuggestion and hypnosis led by a prominent figure of the time, the young Sergei managed to get out of the quagmire. Shortly after, in the mid-1900s, he left for Italy, where he would slowly regain his peace in the picturesque coastal town of Varazze, near Genoa.

Natalie
Such was the degree of recovering his soul that only two years later, he decided to marry. But he did not go all over Moscow to find her soul mate. It was enough to look around him, putting his eyes on a cousin whom he had met two years ago, Natalie Alexandrovna Satina.

A difficult liaison
Of course, the relationship between lovers was enormously complicated. Not only did they have to face the rejection of both families but, forced by the laws of the time, they had to request various dispensations, including that of the Tsar. Finally, they managed to overcome all obstacles and were married in April 1902. Against all odds, they lived immensely happy for the rest of their days.

The Preludes
Following in the footsteps of Bach, Chopin and Scriabin, the Russian composer wrote 24 Preludes throughout his life, although scattered in three different opuses. The series began with the popular Prelude in C minor, a youth work belonging to opus 3. Then came the ten preludes to opus 23, written between 1901 and 1902. Sergei will end the cycle with the thirteen preludes to opus 32, composed around 1910.

Prelude Opus 23 No 5
Prelude No. 5, opus 23, is presented here. Its form is similar to the traditional tripartite rondo, with an initial section "A" marked Alla marcia, which is followed by a more lyrical and melancholic section "B" accompanied by arpeggios on the left hand (1:30), then, a transition to the original tempo and finally the recap of the opening section (2:40). The work ends without fuss with short arpeggios that finish off pianissimo.

The rendition is by the Russian maestro Emil Gilels, born in 1916 in Odessa and died in Moscow in 1985. Although less known, Gilels is part of the select group of great pianists of the 20th century, along with Arrau, Horowitz, Rubinstein, Benedetti Michelangeli and Sviatoslav Richter.

Igor Stravinsky, The Firebird

 

Igor Feodorovich Stravinsky was the third of four children of a famous singer of the Russian Imperial Opera and of a mother to whom "he only felt duties", according to his own confession. He never felt comfortable in the company of his brothers, so little Igor had to find a note of joviality in an overwhelming childhood whose only joy seemed to come from the care of his nurse, whom he would love and respect all his life, to the point that when she died, he wept for her more than he did for his own mother.

A musician... or a lawyer
Fortunately, the family's musical evenings brought a fruitful breath of life and encouraged his passion for music. At age 9, he began receiving his first piano lessons, and at 11 he was dazzled by attending the opera for the first time. Shortly after, he attended the premiere of Tchaikovsky's Pathetic Symphony, and this time, he was enchanted. At the same time, he was composing his first works. Everything was apparently going well for the young Igor to make music a career, but the ominous fate of young Russian musical promises stood before him and he had to begin studying law at the age of eighteen.

The maestro Nicolai
The only thing that took him away from juridical destiny was having made acquaintance with the composer Nicolai Rimski-Kórsakov who, despite frowning at his first works, finally received him at his home for three years to teach him the trade, explaining everything concerning the musical forms and their language, and supporting him in the orchestration of his own piano scores. The maestro Nicolai, perhaps unintentionally, thus became the only musician from whom Stravinsky later admitted having learned anything.

Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

Diaghilev
The year 1908 already sum several scores to his credit, applauded by the public and critics. The only thing missing is a bit of luck and this comes hand in hand with a concert where two of his works are performed and which is attended by an attentive spectator, Sergei Diaghilev, creator of the Ballets Russes that are all the rage in Paris at that time. Diaghilev did not delay in asking the author to orchestrate Chopin's music for a planned future ballet to be called The Sylphides.

The Firebird
Igor is happier than a clam. Even so, he does not imagine that the celebrity is around the corner and that he is going to conquer it overnight. Indeed, at the end of the summer of 1909, he received a telegram from Diaghilev commissioning him to write the score for the ballet The Firebird, scheduled for the following season of the Ballets Russes. Despite the short term granted, Igor completed the work on time, which premiered on June 25 of that year at the Paris Opera, not without some setbacks. The frenetic rhythm of the music puzzled some dancers, to the extent that the famous Anna Pavlova refused to dance "such atrocities", being replaced by Tamara Karsavina (pictured).

The tout Paris was immediately seduced by Stravinsky's music as well as by the costumes and novel sets of the staging. The sparkling and charming music of the 28-year-old young master would greatly influence the choreographic work, revitalizing an art that seemed exhausted from so much pas de deux. The Firebird will kill them forever, taking the tutus with him in passing.

Listening "with new ears"
The rendition, as a suite for orchestra, is by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Boulez, including the last scenes: Infernal Dance, Berceuse and Finale (the complete ballet lasts nearly fifty minutes).
One final word: it is not easy to distinguish in this music tunes that can be hummed, but since it has already turned one hundred years old, I think it is time to make an effort to listen to it "with new ears", abandoning the sound and harmonics schemes from the 19th century and earlier.

Chopin, Polonaise "Heroique"

 
Despite being a Polish folk dance, "polonaises" were not written by the first time by Fréderic Chopin. Before him, Bach, Telemann, Mozart and Schubert did write pieces "with a polonaise rhythm ". And after him, Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky, along with Chopin, Liszt and Schumann would write polonaises, as well. But of all "classical polonaises", those by Chopin are the most famous, perhaps because Frédéric, in addition to being Polish, acquired great skill in its composition throughout his life, given that his first work, written when he was seven years old was, precisely, a Polonaise.

The Polonaise in A flat major opus 53, called "Heroique" – in no way by Chopin but by some of his editors – was written in 1836 and published in 1843. The date of its composition can be taken for granted since an autograph score has been preserved from September 12, 1836, a copy that Frédéric offered to a young Clara Wieck on her way through Leipzig, On that copy, he stamped in his own handwriting, the words: "from his admirer", as a birthday present, because Clara was turning seventeen the next day.

A gentle touch

According to legend, on one occasion when he was playing the piece in front of some friends Chopin paused impetuously on the difficult octaves scaling of the left hand (3:24), fascinated by the evocation of the armies advancing towards Poland, in pursuit of their liberation. But the anecdote is doubtful since those who once heard him assure that Frédéric highly dosed the two "crescendos" in octaves, starting from a mezzo-forte to a forte without too much bravery, due to both his fidelity to his aesthetics and his physical weakness.

Vladimir Horowitz
The rendition is by one of the greatest pianists of the twentieth century, the Russian maestro Vladimir Horowitz, born in Kyiv in 1903 and died in New York in 1989. His first public performance outside the nascent Soviet Union was in Berlin in 1925. Then he played in Paris, London, and New York. From the last city, he would not move. He stayed in the West until 1986, when he returned to the – this time – the failing Soviet Union to give a recital at the Moscow Conservatory, before a packed auditorium.

The video is apparently recorded in one of the concert halls of the Musikverein, in Vienna. It follows the recital in Moscow, and the Russian maestro would be at least 84 years old.

Robert Schumann, Piano Concerto

On September 12, 1840, thanks to their loyalty and determination, the epic of Robert and Clara Schumann, the lovers, ended happily. That day, they were married at the small church of Schönefeld, near Leipzig. Out of sheer joy, the following year Robert wrote two symphonies, the marriage's first daughter was born, and the composer wrote the outlines for what will later become his Piano Concerto in A minor.

Clara on tour
Despite the fact that his catalog of musical compositions kept growing day by day, Robert Schumann still did not obtain recognition from the general public. For her part, Clara did not stop working offering recitals throughout Europe, occasions when, by the way, she would make known her husband's works.

Robert Schumann
(1810 - 1856)

In 1842, Robert decided to accompany Clara to a recital in Weimar, where the famous pianist idolized by the public had been invited. It was the first time that Clara's husband had to answer a question that should not be asked.

"And you, are you also a musician?
The question, made more out of courtesy than — for the worse — out of genuine concern, became habitual and began to make Robert uncomfortable. So when, a little later, Copenhagen called for Clara's presence for a two-month tour of Denmark, Robert preferred to stay at home and Clara set out on the journey by herself.

Upon return, they continued to be the happy couple they will be their entire life.

Clara Schumann
(1819 - 1896)

Piano Concerto in A minor
In 1845 Robert Schumann took up the 1841 sketches, originally a one-movement fantasy for piano and orchestra, and saw that they were good. He added two movements to the fantasy project and thus built his first and only piano concerto, premiered, unsurprisingly, by the brilliant Clara on January 1, 1846, in Leipzig.

The rendition is by the wonderful Georgian pianist Khatia Buniatishvili, accompanied by the Radio Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Paavo Järvi, in a performing given in the German town of Wiesbaden, August 2012. At the end, Khatia gives us as an encore, Liszt's Love Dream No. 3.

Below, a listening guide:

The concert lasts about 30 minutes and is in three movements. Schumann, as Mendelssohn, tended to connect the movements of some of his works together. In this case, the second movement links to the third without interruption. The solo piano interventions are difficult and elaborate but, as usual in Schumann, they never become orphan exhibitions of musical sense or passages of pure brilliance.

Movements:
Allegro affettuoso. The piano comes into action simultaneously with the orchestra, introducing the first theme, which is then repeated by the piano solo, allowing us to perceive the intense Chopinian aroma of the motif. A second theme includes beautiful passages for the solo piano, interrupted by beautiful clarinet passages. At the end, after a furious passage of chords at high speed, Khatia attacks the opening theme with her left hand while over it she plays a long trill with her right, which leads to a final coda that brilliantly closes the movement.

Intermezzo - andantino grazioso (15:45) The Chopin world returns, represented by a beautiful phrasing of the piano, accompanied by a serene orchestral background. Afterwards, the cellos pick up a variation of the melody and the piano adorns it with arpeggios. An allusion to the first theme of the first movement serves as a bridge to address the execution of the third, without pause.

Allegro vivace (20:55) Supported by two brilliant songs, syncopated, the piano covers almost restlessly a wide expanse of the keyboard. Before the end, Khatia repeats the subtlety of the prolonged trill. A coda based on the first theme will lead to a brilliant ending.

Verdi, Triumphal March from Aida

Shortly after the Jedive (a sort of governor) of Egypt, Ismail Pasha, asked Giuseppe Verdi to write an opera to be performed in Cairo in 1871, the project had to be abandoned because of the Franco-Prussian war. It was a pity since the Jedi had offered the great Italian master, almost sixty years old, the not negligible sum of 150,000 francs. Nor could he be offered less, since Giuseppe had long enjoyed international fame and celebrity, as well as financial independence, all of which sponsored the quiet enjoyment of his life on the Sant'Agata estate, where he had been living for twenty years in the company of his second woman, the soprano Giuseppina Strepponi.

Verdi gets excited
It had been two years since the Jedive Opera House had been opened with Rigoletto, so the governor considered it fair and necessary to insist on the proposal. As Verdi learned that the governor had also talked to Gounod and Wagner, he hastened to read the libretto based on a story by the French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, which turned out to be to his complete liking, finally accepting the commission, in June 1870.

Premieres
The majestic opera Aida opened in Cairo on December 21, 1871, to an overwhelming success. Verdi did not attend the performance, but later he was delighted to learn that the audience had been filled with dignitaries, great personalities and critics but not ordinary audiences, as was the custom in his beloved Italy.

For this reason, Giuseppe would consider later that the true premiere of the work took place at La Scala in Milan, in February 1872. On that occasion, the role of Aída was entrusted to the soprano Teresa Stolz, Verdi's mature passion which, fortunately, mattered little thanks to the patience and dignified conduct of Giuseppina.

Aída, opera in 4 acts
In just over two and a half hours, the play tells the story of Aida, an Ethiopian princess captured and taken as a slave to Egypt. Radames, an Egyptian military man, would fall in love with her, who then must struggle between his love for Aida and his loyalty to the pharaoh, whose daughter, Amneris, to make matters worse, is crazy about Radames.

The most famous opera episode occurs in Act II, when the Egyptian people celebrate the victorious return of Radames after defeating the Ethiopians, singing the famous Triumphal March.

About 500 singers and 60 musicians are performing in the concert version presented here. It was recorded on the occasion of the 2010 International Choral Festival Gala, which is held every two years in the Swedish town of Lund.