"He knows everything, but he lacks inexperience", commented Hector Berlioz about the young composer Camille Saint-Saëns, when the latter premiered his first work in 1853, at the age of eighteen. Fourteen years later, Berlioz's opinion had lost all trace of sarcasm and he was able to say unequivocally that Saint-Saëns was "a brilliant pianist and one of the greatest musicians of our time".
Indeed, by 1867, the composer who at the age of ten had delighted audiences at the famous Salle Pleyel with his first public concert had already composed his First Symphony, a piano concerto, and a violin concerto, as well as a variety of chamber music and the outline of an opera. Saint-Saëns was a celebrity in Paris.
A concerto for Anton Rubinstein Therefore, it is not surprising that in 1868 the premiere of his Second Piano Concerto was memorable enough to force a new performance within a few days. The composer had met that same year the Russian pianist and conductor Anton Rubinstein performing as a soloist in a series of concerts conducted by the already famous Saint-Saëns. Rubinstein told him that he had never conducted in France, they hit it off and Saint-Saëns undertook to write a piano concerto for Rubinstein to conduct in Paris.
Camille Saint-Saëns (1835 - 1921)
Soloist, conductor, and vice versa According to some, it took Saint-Saëns ten days to write the concerto; according to others, three weeks. What is certain is that the work was premiered on May 13, 1868, with Saint-Saëns as the soloist and the Russian conductor in charge of conducting the orchestra. The second performance "at the request of the public" allowed Rubinstein to take over the solo piano this time.
Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra in G minor, opus 22 The work is in three movements and exhibits the unusual feature that the slow movement is the first and not the second.
Andante sostenuto: A long solo piano introduction with baroque reminiscences. The orchestra makes its appearance at minute 1:29 with sonorous chords; then the piano sings the quiet and melancholic first theme (2:03); a dialogue with the orchestra begins. A second theme appears at 4:05, introduced by the piano and orchestra. At 8:10 the soloist begins a long cadenza until at 10:38 the orchestra joins in, accompanying the piano in a hushed, mysterious way and then unexpectedly building to a climax at 12:42. Two sharp fortissimo chords close the movement.
Allegro scherzando:13:06 As already mentioned, instead of the typical adagio, as a second movement we have a scherzo. In the key of E flat, the two themes that make it up are lively and witty. First theme: 13:10 The piano's very fast octave scales lead into the second theme, without further ado, at 14:20. The first theme is resumed at 15:30, now in a minor key. The first and second themes alternate before leading to a simple, sparing and elegant closing.
Presto: 19:34 The piece returns to the initial key, G minor. The movement is entirely a frenetic tarantella. Terribly fast, it ends with a tumultuous arpeggiated finale by piano and orchestra. There can be no doubt that Saint-Saëns knew how to bring a concerto to a close and, as Berlioz said, he must also have been a terrific pianist.
The rendition is by Arthur Rubinstein accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pierre Boulez.
Samuel Osborne Barber, the author of the famous lyrical piece Adagio for Strings, was born in Pennsylvania, USA, on March 9, 1910. His parents intended him to be a doctor, but before he was ten years old Samuel convinced them that his vocation was different. Despite everything, they had been listening to the songs that the little boy would compose at any time with an amazing naturalness. As if that was not enough, at the age of nine he sent his mother a letter informing her of his irrevocable decision:
"Dear Mother: I have written this to tell you my worrying secret. Now don't cry when you read it because it is neither yours nor my fault. I suppose I will have to tell it now without any nonsense. To begin with I was not meant to be an athlet [sic]. I was meant to be a composer, and will be I'm sure. I'll ask you one more thing.—Don't ask me to try to forget this unpleasant thing and go play football.—Please—Sometimes I've been worrying about this so much that it makes me mad (not very)."
Thus, at the age of fourteen, he entered the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia, from which he graduated in 1935, shortly before his twenty-fifth birthday. After beginning a promising career as a singer and composer, in 1939 he returned to his alma mater to work for some time as a professor of orchestration. Among his students was a young Italian, Gian Carlo Menotti, with whom he soon discovered that he had many affinities, such as literature and the music of Brahms. Other affinities would later turn teacher and pupil into a sentimental couple.
Samuel Barber (1910 - 1981)
A lyrical work of the twentieth century Barber enjoyed years of enormous success and recognition in the 1950s and 1960s, but later he had to face the controversy generated by the difficult qualification of his work, which was constantly questioned as to its quality, which for many proved to be, at least, "not very modern".
Barber was criticized for not adapting to the most modern currents such as dodecaphonism, which, without disdaining it completely, he disregarded in order to remain faithful to an inner voice that was stronger than any "modernism".
Indeed, Barber's musical language is strongly anchored in the 19th century, and although rhythmically and harmonically he did design quite complex structures, the naturalness and simplicity of his work are mainly based on the preeminence of the melody which, for his followers, spoke for itself.
Adagio for Strings
The work is part of the Quartet opus 11, completed during a stay in Austria in the company of Menotti, and premiered in Rome in 1936. The quartet has three movements. The second of them is the one that, in orchestral arrangement, will later become the famous Adagio for Strings, Barber's most performed piece and perhaps the hallmark of the American composer ― a lament in a minor key capable of arousing in the listener the deepest melancholy.
The rendition is by the Symphony Orchestra of a music school in Poland, conducted by Andrzej Kucybała.
Unlike what was customary in those years, for the premiere of his Seventh Symphony in 1813 Beethoven was fortunate to have among the members of the improvised orchestra a good number of famous musicians. The involvement of Salieri, Hummel, Meyerbeer, Spöhr is not in doubt, but it is said that a 32-year-old Italian musician settled in Vienna since 1806, Mauro Giuliani, provided his services as well. On the occasion, the virtuoso guitarist and composer would have played the cello, an instrument that he also mastered since he had begun his musical education on it.
A guitar virtuoso But Giuliani was essentially a guitar virtuoso. Along with Fernando Sor, he was one of the last outstanding instrumentalists of the classical era, before the fortunate rescue of the instrument at the beginning of the 20th century. Born in the town of Bisceglie in 1781, at the age of 19 he undertook a tour of Europe motivated by the interest in making a career, since the interest of the Italian public was increasingly oriented towards opera, not to mention the fact that in those years Italy abounded in talented guitarists.
Vienna The tour was successful, and in 1806 Mauro Giuliani decided to settle in Vienna, where he was to remain until 1819. There he was recognized and acclaimed by the Viennese high society after joining their musical circles and taking part with colleagues of the stature of Hummel and Moscheles in the musical life of the capital of the empire.
His talent was also recognized by Rossini and Beethoven. The latter even referred to the Italian guitarist in very good terms on more than one occasion, and perhaps that is why Giuliani decided to repay the gesture by taking part in the premiere of the Seventh Symphony.
Mauro Giuliani (1781 - 1829)
Eroica Sonata in A major, opus 150 Mauro Giuliani published more than 200 works, for solo guitar and various orchestral ensembles. Not all have survived to this day. However, his Great Eroica Sonata is today an obligatory piece of the guitar repertoire.
Little is known about the circumstances surrounding its creation. The only mention Giuliani made of the work in his entire life is in a letter he sent to the publishing house Ricordi, in 1821, offering the sale of five pieces composed "in a style never seen before". One of them, which he names as Gran Sonata Eroica, is described by the author as "very extensive and never heard before", an illuminating remark because it informs us of Giuliani's concern to ensure that the work does not come from self-plagiarism, a common resource at the time. In 1840, nineteen years later, Ricordi published a work by Giuliani with that title, as opus 150. Giuliani had died in 1829.
The piece has a single movement, marked allegro maestoso. The rendition is by the Spanish guitarist Paola Requena, born in Cartagena in 1982.
"Magdalena, we will have to leave Köthen and go somewhere else. There is no longer a place for a musician here".
These are words Magdalena Bach puts in Johann Sebastian's mouth to describe the moment when her husband confessed to her that he had had enough of the court in Köthen, He urgently needed to get a new position at another court, hopefully a more prestigious one, which, needless to say, was not at all easy.
But as in general terms luck was always on the master's side, right around that time the post of Kantor of St. Thomas' church in Leipzig became vacant due to the death of its incumbent in June 1722. When Bach heard of this, he hastened to send in his application for admission. However, a little ordeal awaited him.
Bach, a recently known portrait
At the first convocation – which Bach possibly did not know about – Georg Philipp Telemann applied and was elected. But Telemann was just making a play. As music director of Hamburg's five main churches, his aim was to force the authorities to raise his salary. When he succeeded, he resigned from the post he had just obtained. The Thomaskirche was once again without a Kantor.
For the second convocation, it is said that Bach did not send his application in time, or if he did, he was unlucky because the favored candidate was another candidate, Christoph Graupner, at the time Kapellmeister of the court of Darmstadt. But to take office, Graupner had to request permission from his employer, the landgrave (the prince, or count) of Darmstadt. Weeks passed and the permission did not come. The Leipzig City Council had to meet again... the Thomaskirche was still without a Kantor.
Obligations
The church's greatest difficulty for filling the vacancy was that the candidate, in addition to being in charge of church music, was to teach singing to the children of the Thomasschule, the school run by the church since before the Lutheran reformation. Aware of this, Bach – in case he got the appointment – undertook "to conform to the curricula, as they are currently ordered or as they will be ordered in the future, and in particular to teach singing to the children who are admitted to the school, not only during the normal established hours, but also privately and free of charge".
At the end of April 1723, the final session of the Council took place. All the councilors present gave their vote to Bach. After accepting the terms of his new job and having passed a short examination in theology, Johann Sebastian Bach took up the post of Kantor of the Thomaskirche on May 15. He was 38 years old.
Concerto IV for keyboard and orchestra in A major - BWV 1055
Except for Brandenburg concertos, all of Bach's concertos for keyboard and orchestra were originally written for another solo instrument, possibly in Köthen, and "arranged" for keyboard in Leipzig, around 1738. It is believed that this concerto was originally written for oboe d'amore. In any case, only the keyboard versions have survived.
Compared to the "original" version for harpsichord and strings, the one presented here shows some modernization, if the term fits. Instead of harpsichord, piano; and as for the orchestra, it has grown a bit from the original violins I and II, viola and continuo.
Movements:
00 Allegro
04:01 Larguetto
08:50 Allegro ma non tanto
The rendition is by Concerto Köln, a Baroque music chamber ensemble formed in 1985, one of many groups associated with the surging interest in period instruments.
By 1833, barely two years after settling in Paris, Frédéric Chopin had won over a large part of French high society, to the point that the Revue Musicale of those years would express its opinion of the Polish musician in the following terms:
"Chopin deliberately departs from the beaten path. His playing and his composition have been accepted from the beginning with such consideration, and he has acquired such a reputation that in the opinion of many this artist is an inexplicable phenomenon."
And, interestingly, all this was also inexplicable for Chopin himself. In a letter to a Polish childhood friend, he writes, in January 1833:
"I am already launched! I see myself in high society, among ambassadors, princes and ministers, and I do not know by what miracle, since I have done nothing to enter it. But they say that for me it is indispensable to rub shoulders with these people because from there, they say, comes good taste. You are possessed of great talent on the spot if you have been heard at the English or Austrian embassy. You play better if the princess of Vaudemont has protected you..."
Good times I don't know by what miracle, writes Chopin. Now that's incredible. There was nothing fatuous about Chopin, it would seem. In those years things were going well, in general. His students, at the beginning most of them amateurs, belonged to the Parisian aristocracy. This allowed him to charge 20 francs an hour for his lessons. If we think that, for example, his servant meant an outlay of 70 francs per month, the twenty francs per hour was not bad for him.
Another story, very different, is the one related to the revenues per published work. Chopin sold to his publishers his entire work for only 17,000 francs. The four scherzos published between 1835 and 1843 are part of this production.
Scherzo No. 1 opus 20 in B minor
Likely sketched in 1831 in Stuttgart while on his way to Paris from Vienna, Scherzo N°1 was published in Paris in 1835, with a dedication to his friend Thomas Albrecht, who after the failed Warsaw uprising of 1831 had rightly suggested to him not to return to Poland.
The work inaugurates the model to which Chopin will be faithful in the three subsequent scherzos. Innovative in name and form, Chopin's scherzos are neither a diversion nor part of a larger work where they are intended to separate the allegro from the adagio or one of these from the end of the piece, in the style of Mozart or Haydn. They are, in the words of pianist and conductor Alfred Cortot "...terrifying games; they are dances, but feverish, hallucinatory; they only seem to be following the rhythm of human torments," which applies, genuinely, at least to the first three scherzos.
The rendition is by the Chinese pianist Yundi Li.
Structure
Like the rest of the scherzos, the piece is ternary in nature, with an ABA structure with a coda, that is, 1st theme (00), 2nd theme (3:50), and back to the first (7:00), plus a coda (9:12). It begins with two chords in fortissimo introducing the first theme at a tremendous speed putting early pressure on the performer. The central section offers him a comfortable truce in the form of a tender lullaby, taken - something unusual for Chopin - from a popular melody ("Sleep, Jesucito, sleep"). Then the furious line will reappear. After its repetition, it will lead to a short coda that will bring the piece to a brilliant ending.
Around 1800, the "classical" sonata, understood as the one that came out of Clementi, Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, was not yet a concert piece in the sense of a work to be performed within the framework of a piano "recital". And for many reasons, including the fact that recitals did not exist, nor did solo performers. All this will take time. Moreover, as late as 1838, Franz Liszt, the virtuoso par excellence, was to receive a cold reception at La Scala in Milan for a program entirely devoted to Beethoven's sonatas. The public was simply not prepared, even though the maestro had been dead for eleven years.
Opus 49 Less well prepared it was, of course, at the turn of the century. But the publication of the works did bring economic benefits. It is thus understandable that, being twinned in time to the portentous Appassionata or Waldstein from 1804, Beethoven decided to publish in 1805 a pair of very simple sonatas that make up his opus 49, the so-called "easy sonatas" or also, "sonatinas". Very simply structured and technically undemanding, they were certainly written much earlier, in the previous decade, for the study and enjoyment of his pupils, who must have performed them at home, as was the custom, in the company of their parents.
Sonata No. 20 (op. 49 No. 2) in G Major Written in the key of G major, the second of the two sonatas of opus 49 is easier, and certainly the easiest of all Beethoven's sonatas. For this reason, listening to it in a live concert is only possible on the occasion of the complete master's sonatas, an opportunity offered by Daniel Barenboim in Berlin in mid-2005.
Movements The beautiful and simple sonata just eight minutes long has only two movements and, interestingly, almost no dynamic indications (only two pianissimo in the minuet), which at first glance might seem a complication but rather results in an interesting challenge for the performer who must show signs of good taste born of his own musical intuition.
00Allegro ma non troppo Exhibition, in G major: 00 - 1:22. It must be repeated. Development section, with a bit of drama: 2:43 - 3:03. Recap: 3:04.
4:32Tempo di menuetto Beethoven also gave no indication about the left hand articulation, legato or not, for the main motif (which Beethoven would reuse in his Septet opus 20). Barenboim chose legato.
Middle section: 4:48. Repetition of the theme in the upper octave: 4:55.
Separated by several episodes, the theme is repeated six times, which has inspired some performers to add, each time, one or another ornamentation. This is not the case of Barenboim, who strictly kept to Beethoven's writing.
6:33 New episode, with some brio.
7:43 The piece is heading towards its conclusion, ending very quietly with two dominant and tonic chords; delicatissimo, is the generalized approach, although Beethoven did not say a word about it.
As noted above, Beethoven again used the minuet theme in the Septet opus 20, this time with a certain rustic dance character. The piece is presented here in a rendition by the Chicago Chambers Musicians.
With all due respect, I'll stick with the piano version for the longest time.
The prolific author of operettas Jacques Offenbach, of German origin, earned his living in Paris as a virtuoso cellist before taking over in 1850, at the age of 31, the direction of the Théatre Français' orchestra, where, much to his regret, he never managed to have any of his works staged on. Five years later, he decided to set up his own company, located in a small theater that he baptized with the name of Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens.
Orpheus in the Underworld
In his new headquarters, Offenbach would premiere very witty short musical stage plays whose humorous texts and catchy melodies were all the rage in Paris at the time. Enthused by the success and the welcome given to his musical inventiveness – in addition to the lifting of the curious restrictions stated for his license (one act and a maximum of three performers) –, in 1858 he premiered a major work. The mythological satire Orphée aux Enfers is a delightful parody where he mocks the myth of Orpheus, poet, and singer, and his wife Eurydice, gloating in passing with Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice.
The play is, of course, also a social satire, in which the novel character Public Opinion plays an important role. More than a century later, in a 1980s version in London, the character will draw a satirical portrait of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880)
Gods and Can-Can
But it is not only Orpheus who is ridiculed but the entire pleiad of Greek gods. Full of delicious incongruities, the play presents Jupiter, Venus, Juno, Cupid, Mars, Pluto, Diana, Mercury, Minerva, Morpheus, and the inevitable Bacchus, in situations where no reverence is granted, whose climax will come at the end of Act II when the gods must dance an irreverent Can-Can, a dance of recent invention and practiced with ardent enthusiasm in the ballrooms of the Parisian popular classes in the mid-nineteenth century.
The critics
However, the reception to the premiere of October 21, 1858, was rather mediocre, although it did manage to impress some critics. Offenbach then decided to revise it, providing it with new orchestration and expanding the original two acts to complete four acts and twelve scenes. The scathing opinion of a critic of the time – to whom the composer responded by pointing out that the texts sung by one of the characters in the play were based on his opinions – turned out to be a tremendous endorsement of the work, which after the little skirmish enjoyed 228 performances before being paused for a short time, simply because the performers needed a well-deserved rest.
Carl Binder (1816 - 1860)
A new overture
The work returned to the stage a few weeks later, and in 1860 it was successfully performed in Vienna with a new overture. To the original, rather brief one, the Austrian operetta composer Carl Binder added a series of episodes culminating in the famous Can-Can. The new overture opens with a poignant fanfare, followed by a clarinet solo introducing a tender love song by the oboe (1:44). After a brief dramatic passage (3:26), the concertino announces the first bars of a calm waltz (4:18) that later acquires a certain drama. Finally, the widely spread Can-Can kicks off with all its crazy glee at 6:59.
The rendition is by the Slovenian Youth Orchestra Gimnazija Kranj.
"The kind Prince Leopold presented me with the bridal crown and took part in our wedding feast with great pleasure, for eight days later he was to take the charming princess of Anhalt-Bernburg to the altar."
These are the words of Anna Magdalena Bach, Johann Sebastian's second wife, after the ceremony of their marriage on 21 December 1721 at Bach's house, willingly attended by 'the gracious prince'. The 'charming princess' will indeed marry the prince the following week, but she will not turn out to be as charming as Anna Magdalena assumed, in the rapture of the moment.
Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen (1694 - 1728)
Calvin versus Luther
Four years earlier Johann Sebastian had entered the provincial court of Anhalt-Köthen, ruled by Prince Leopold, who was nine years younger than Bach and a great music lover, as well as an excellent singer and player of the violin, harpsichord, and viola da gamba. Although since 1595 the official religion of the principality was Calvinist, the prince had been educated by his mother in the more orthodox Lutheran faith. Thus, the musical chapel he managed to form was almost exclusively oriented towards the production of secular music, since religious – Calvinist – music was all but excluded.
Despite Bach's deep religiosity, these circumstances were to his advantage, as they allowed him to devote his time almost exclusively to the creation of instrumental music, adding to his catalog perhaps the most famous works in the genre, born during his stay in Köthen. Highly paid, moreover, everything was going swimmingly for Johann Sebastian until the enchanting princess arrived.
Frederica Henrietta von Anhalt-Köthen 1702 - 1723
The "non-muse" girl
According to Anna Magdalena, Bach had decided to spend the rest of his days with her in Köthen. But no one expected that Leopold's cousin, Princess Frederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg, freshly converted in Frederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Köthen, would soon reveal a very unattractive side of her personality. The princess was absolutely a-musical. In Bach's own words, she was a "non-muse", indifferent if not an enemy of music and any other form of culture. As if that were not enough, she was able to attract her husband to her modus vivendi, alienating the passionate music lover Leopold from his musicians and, of course, from his kapellmeister Bach.
Johann Sebastian left this "cold atmosphere" where "there is no longer any place for a musician" in 1723, heading for Leipzig. Although perhaps the maestro was a little hasty, because poor Henrietta died that same year, barely 21. (Leopold followed shortly afterward, in 1728, a few days before his 34th birthday).
Production of the period - Concerto for two violins
As already noted, the six years Bach spent at the small court of Köthen were remarkably productive. Besides several sonatas for violin, cello and flute, as well as suites and inventions for keyboard, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier and no less than the six Brandenburg concertos date from these years.
In terms of music for violin and orchestra, the three surviving concertos for the instrument are registered, the most famous of them written for two violins, and presented here in an immaculate rendition by soloists Arabella Steinbacher and Akiko Suwanai.
Movements
Written for two violins, strings and continuo, the work is a tributary of the Italian model in fashion, or, more precisely, of the Vivaldian model, with its three-beat fast-slow-fast structure and the usual dialogue between soloists and orchestra. Nevertheless, faced with the need to emphasize the ability of the soloists, Bach substantially reduced the contribution of the string orchestra, which is evident in the Largo, where the entire protagonism is left to the two soloists to configure one of Bach's most sublime slow movements.
00 Vivace
03:54 Largo ma non tanto
10:29 Allegro
The work has been featured as incidental music in several films. Incidentally, Woody Allen was no stranger to this trend when he incorporated the First Movement into his 1986 film, Hannah and Her Sisters.
As love conquers all, when he was thirty-six Franz Liszt slowed down his incessant and extensive touring as a piano performer at the behest of his new partner, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who suggested that he would do better devoting all his efforts to composition. They had met in Kyiv in 1847, on the occasion of Liszt's tour of cities in the Russian Empire. Carolyne, long distanced from her husband and in charge of their daughter, soon followed the maestro to Weimar, where Liszt resided, or rather, had to do so. From then on, Carolyne would accompany Franz for nearly forty years though they never married, and their relationship of the last years became purely epistolary.
In Weimar Five years earlier, in 1842, Franz Liszt had taken up the post of Kapellmeister of Weimar, the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, signing a contract obliging him to stay in Weimar for at least three months a year, a commitment that Liszt fulfilled as he pleased. Interestingly, Grand Duke Karl Friedrich and his wife, Duchess Maria Pavlovna Romanova, were surprisingly tolerant of the maestro's informality. This is shown by a letter that Karl Alexander, son of the couple, sent to his friend Liszt reminding him of his engagement to Weimar with astonishing delicacy:
"I hope you won't be angry with me if I distract you for a moment from all your activities. I have taken up the pen only to ask you how everything is going, and especially, how everything is going with you. I have heard nothing from you for a long time, except for a few words that [a common acquaintance] passed on to me when he returned from Vienna. He told me that you work quite hard, so I am sorry not to see you, given your self-imposed task... Don't grudge me if I try to slip the name of Weimar into your plans..... The Grand Duchess and I look forward to seeing our wishes come true in December..... If the summer had already dashed my hopes of seeing you again, let the winter be the one to keep the promise..."
Yours most affectionately Karl Alexander
This situation went on until 1848 when Liszt took Carolyne and her daughter to Weimar, where they lived until 1859 in a residence that Maria Pavlovna placed at the master's disposal. The duchess, pianist, lover, and patron of the arts, was also the one who paid Franz's salary out of her own pocket. A rather low salary, to the extent that the maestro went so far as saying that he regarded the income from Weimar as "little money for cigars", which explains, to a certain extent, Liszt's scant commitment to the court.
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlona Romanova (1786 - 1859)
The virtuoso calms down
But from 1848 onwards, following Carolyne's advice, he remained for long periods in the city, devoted to composition and conducting, making known there the new works of his colleagues, or those of the recent past, and performing highly celebrated stagings of all of them. In a relatively short time the composer became the great organizer of musical life in Weimar, in the company of Carolyne and, it must also be said, by the hand of the grand duke and his duchess, both illustrious and distinguished enlightened despots, notwithstanding the paltry emoluments of their court musicians.
The production of those years
As for the orchestral corpus, it should be noted that much of Liszt's compositional work was done during this period (for which Carolyne would have to be given a pat on the back). Such important works as the Faust and Dante symphonies, twelve of his thirteen tone poems, and the Piano Concerto No. 1 were dated around this time. To all this, we can add his most celebrated piano scores: the Transcendental Études, the second volume of Années de Pélerinage, the Consolations and, of course, a fundamental work of the romantic piano: his only sonata written for the instrument, composed between 1852 and 1853, presented here in an admirable rendition by the brilliant Chinese pianist Yundi Li.
Piano Sonata in B minor Published in 1854, it was premiered in public by Franz von Büllow, Liszt's pupil and son-in-law, on January 27, 1857. It is dedicated to Robert Schumann. Despite its title, it does not present the typical sonata form of the classical-romantic period but a very personal framework of the form, a large continuous stroke of half an hour that dispenses with the traditional "exposition, development, recapitulation" scheme for a first movement. However, the following movements are marked, even if they are played continuously:
00 Lento assai - allegro energico - grandioso
12:05 Andante sostenuto
18:42 Allegro energico - andante sostenuto - lento assai
In its development, each instant is born as a consequence of the previous one to lead in the most natural way towards the following one. Thus, a theme that may sound threatening or violent, can soon mutate into a beautiful and serene melody, or vice versa. This is what happens, for example, at minute 5:50, whose idea is taken up even more quietly and melodiously in the andante sostenuto, minute 13:11, revisited in turn in the third movement at 22:46 and then tackled with resolute verve at 24:07.
The piece ends demurely, with the single note B on the low part of the keyboard.
Reception of the work
The work was generally well-received, but as it takes all sorts to make a world, the great Clara Schumann, pianist, composer and wife of the dedicatee, did not find it amusing, as she pointed out at the time: "What a noise without reason! No sound thought, everything is tangled; not even a clear harmonic chaining is to be found."
Nevertheless, almost a century later Richard Strauss wrote the following in a letter to the pianist Wilhelm Kempff: "If Liszt had only written this sonata, a gigantic work born from a single cell, it would have been enough to demonstrate the strength of his spirit".
Ludwig van Beethoven was 24 years old when he turned to Antonio Salieri – Kapellmeister, renowned opera director and alleged poisoner of Mozart – for lessons from the Italian maestro. Ludwig had been settled in Vienna for a little over a year after his father's death at the end of 1792. His mother had died five years earlier, and the passing of his father made him realize that he no longer had any ties to Bonn, his hometown.
Looking for teachers So settled in Vienna at the beginning of 1793, the young Ludwig will try to acquire a greater technical background based on the lessons that some renowned Viennese master could provide him. His first attempt, of course, was with Joseph Haydn, forty years his senior. It was not only the age gap that counted. The incompatibility of character was enormous and the lessons with the master did not last more than a few months. Then he tried Albrechtsberger, an eminence in the art of counterpoint, with whom he behaved more tolerant, following his precepts for a little more than a year. Between 1793 and 1794 he also frequented another famous pedagogue of the time, Johann Schenk. None of them satisfied him.
Master Salieri
Antonio Salieri (1750 - 1825)
Interestingly, it will be the slandered Antonio Salieri with whom Beethoven will have the longest teacher-student relationship. And we don't just say it because of the gossip surrounding the Italian composer but because Salieri was an opera-oriented musician and, as far as we know, Beethoven composed only one. However, he will attend his teachings for more than eight years, from 1794 to 1802. Even later, the master from Bonn will often seek the advice of the Italian musician. All this will not prevent that later, already respected and famous, when asked repeatedly about the teachers to whom he owed something, Beethoven answers, a little haughty, although perhaps only annoyed: "I am a student of Socrates and Jesus Christ."
Sonata in G major, op. 14 N ° 2 Published in 1799, it was probably composed the year before. Described by the pianist and musicologist Donald Tovey as "an exquisite little work", it sets an enormous distance from the most famous sonata that precedes it, the romantic and intensely dramatic "Pathetique" (opus 13). One wonders, then, if in its creation Salieri did intervene in some way to calm the spirits, suggesting to Beethoven an aesthetic return to pure classicism, in Haydn style.
Movements They are three, traditionally fast - slow - fast, yet the scherzo, usually an inner movement, is placed here at the end.
00:00Allegro The main theme begins with the rhythmic accent in the middle of the measure, which may cause some confusion in the listener as it makes it difficult to follow the meter of the piece during the first seconds. A brief turn brings the accentuation to the beginning of the measure at 00:25. The movement holds three easily distinguishable themes, presented successively: the one that has just begun at 00:25, the second at 00:54 and the third at 1:26. The movement then proceeds along the usual lines in its development and recapitulation.
07:22Andante - Theme and variations. Although this movement is the slow one, it begins with a martial, somewhat presumptuous motif. Three variations will follow. It closes with the contrivance used by Haydn in his symphony "The Surprise": the attending ladies will wake up if they are asleep, if they are not, they will let out a howl at the final chord in C major, fortissimo, entirely unexpected.
12:49Scherzo - Allegro assai. It begins with an agile theme that will cover a wide range of the keyboard, in its development. A contrasting motive will appear at 13:47. Scholars see here a scherzo in the form of a rondo. Apparently, Beethoven used here the term scherzo in a broad sense, that is, to point out the lively and joyful mood that marks this little piece of just three minutes, and which ends with a bit of fresh humor in the lowest part of the keyboard (in Beethoven's time).
The composer Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco was one of the most prolific Italian composers of the first half of the twentieth century. Born in Florence in 1895, he descended from a prominent family of bankers established in the Italian city since the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492. In his thirties, his work was in demand by performers of the stature of Jascha Heifetz and Andrés Segovia. So, everything seemed to indicate that there was a promising future ahead of him based on purely academic composition, following in the footsteps of his Florentine ancestors Lully or Cherubini. But the historical-social conditions – the reality, in a word –, would determine an unforeseen turn of events for the young Mario, who at the age of nineteen had graduated as a pianist.
Exile In 1933 the Italian fascist government began to promote its particular vision of the arts, and even before the official promulgation of the Italian racist laws in 1938, Castelnuovo-Tedesco's extensive work, which by that time encompassed music of almost every genre – chamber, vocal and choral, opera, keyboard and orchestral – was banned from the radio and his performances were cancelled. The composer had to emigrate to the United States, where he was generously welcomed by his compatriot Arturo Toscanini, a few weeks after the outbreak of World War II.
Mario Castelnuovo-Tedesco (1895 - 1968)
In California Settled in California, he resumed his task by composing in the copious variety of genres he was accustomed to. But, from 1940 and for approximately fifteen years, he had to complement his career by writing music for the cinema, a domain in which he was extraordinarily productive. He would compose the soundtrack for around 250 films, although he did not reach the overwhelming success of his compatriot Nino Rota. Starting in 1946, he became a professor at the Los Angeles Conservatory of Music, with Henry Mancini, Jerry Goldsmith, and John Williams among his students.
His work and the guitar His music was influenced by various styles, including a brief flirtation with serialism, but in his later years he moved towards a kind of neo-romanticism, perhaps due to his ties with the film industry, according to some scholars. Castelnuovo-Tedesco's greatest and most lasting contribution lies in his compositions for guitar. In 1932 he met Andrés Segovia, and in 1939 he composed for him his first Concierto for guitar and orchestra, premiered shortly after by the Spanish maestro in Montevideo. It will be followed by a second guitar concerto, one for two guitars and then about a hundred different compositions for the instrument.
Concerto for Guitar and Orchestra No. 1 in D major
Castelnuovo-Tedesco claimed to understand the guitar and therefore to be capable of correctly balance the delicate sound of the instrument and the weight of the accompanying orchestra. Despite all this, the video presented here shows that the soloist has disregarded the teacher's promise and opted to make use of a prosaic microphone. Of course, if it weren't, we wouldn't have audio.
Movements: 00:19 Allegretto - A sort of stately classical-style melody introduces the movement. 06:57 Andantino alla romanza - Peacefully melancholic, the movement is based on three Italian folk songs. 14:40 Ritmico e cavalleresco - A somewhat sardonic melody serves as the basis for its development.
The rendition is by the brilliant Italian guitarist Flavio Sala, accompanied by The Samara Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Mikhail Sherbakov. Performance in 2011, in Samara, Russia.
While living in Paris, Frédéric Chopin had nine different addresses. In 1842, upon returning from a brief stay in Nohant – the summer residence of his partner, George Sand – he and the novelist decided to leave Rue Pigalle, where they had lived since the previous year, and move to Place d'Orléans No. 9, where, in their style, they would live in different apartments or pavilions.
Little Athens The decision was purely due to the desire for a change of scenery. Rue Pigalle had already bored them and they were seduced by the idea of living in a sort of "Fourierist" community (after the utopian socialist Fourier), where writers and artists could meet night after night. Place d'Orléans meets these requirements. And indeed, the singer Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Alexandre Dumas, among others, populate this "little Athens".
In Sand's words, in little Athens:
"...we had only one large courtyard.... always clean, which we crossed to meet... sometimes at [a friend's] house, sometimes at mine, sometimes at Chopin's, when he was ready to play for us. We had decided to make a common pot and eat all together... Chopin rejoiced to have [there] a secluded salon where he could go to compose or dream. But he liked people and only took advantage of his sanctuary to give his lessons."
1838. A young George Sand, pen name of Aurore Dupin (1804 - 1876)
Chopin certainly does not live there for free. The apartment costs him 625 francs, but he charges 20 francs an hour for lessons, giving up to five lessons a day. So he "gets by" without major difficulties.
1842, a productive year And indeed, the composer only composes in Nohant. In that short summer of 1842 he wrote the Scherzo No. 4, the Ballade No. 4, the Polonaise in A-flat, the third Impromptu, and four mazurkas. For a year, Chopin lives one of his most productive periods, which will last until 1847, when the relationship with his "partner" George Sand enters a regrettable misunderstanding that will lead to the definitive break.
Ballade No. 4 in F minor, op. 52 Before Chopin, the term "ballade" was applied exclusively to vocal pieces. So, the four ballades that Chopin wrote are the first instrumental ballades. According to a contemporary scholar, anyone who tries to find the romantic or melodious or sweet Chopin in ballade No. 4 will look in vain. And he is right: the "intimacy" of the piece has made it difficult to access and less popular than the others. However, it turns out to be at the same time one of the most beautiful ballads, if we agree that we are not in the presence of a dreamy nocturne.
Composed in Nohant that summer and published in Paris the following year, it is dedicated to the Baroness de Rothschild, to whose daughter Chopin used to give lessons.
The rendition is by Kate Liu, a talented pianist born in Singapore.
The French composer Erik Satie, creator of an openly satirical if somewhat modest art according to some, left the Paris conservatory in 1886 after seven years of study without winning any awards. Indeed, a professor described him as a "talented but indolent student". However, two years later he composed his famous Gymnopedies, and the following year, the equally celebrated Gnossiennes. They are short piano pieces evoking a singular atmosphere through stylistic resources of surprising simplicity, although with an original harmonic treatment that caught the attention of his friend Debussy, whom he had met in a Parisian cabaret.
Pianist at the Le Chat Noir Yes, because after leaving the conservatory, the young Satie decided to make a living as a cabaret pianist. At the age of 21, he started working at the Le Chat Noir cabaret, playing popular melodies and accompanying the singing of enthusiastic patrons, some of them famous or on their way to becoming so, such as Maupassant or Verlaine. But his temper worked against him and soon after he had to leave LeChat Noir in an inelegant way.
Erik Satie, in 1898 (1866 - 1925)
Pianist at L'auberge du clou But he soon got a job in another cabaret, L'auberge du clou. There he stayed for several years and had the good fortune to meet Claude Debussy, four years his senior and already a musician of some renown. Debussy applauded the harmonies of this irreverent young man (and learned from them, so the story goes) but a few years later he will complain about Satie's carelessness in his treatment of musical forms.
"Trois morceaux en forme de poir" Erik did not forget the suggestion and in 1903 he compiled pieces composed from 1890 until that year, to which he added a couple of recently created pages to form a suite for four-hand piano that he entitled Trois morceaux en forme de poir (Three Pieces in the Form of a Pear). Very much in line with his irreverence, the pieces are not three nor are they pear-shaped. It was one of his first delusional titles. Dissected embryos, from 1913, Things seen to the right and left (without glasses) from 1914, and Bureaucratic Sonatina, from 1917, to name a few, will come.
The rendition (audio only) is by the French pianist Robert Casadesus and his wife, Gaby. The paintings are by Paul Cezanne.
The work (which I recommend listening to with headphones) is made up of the following seven pieces:
00:00 Manière de commencement 03:07 Prolongement du même 03:59 Morceaux I Lentement 05:20 Morceaux II Enlève 07:49 Morceaux III Brutal 10:28 En plus 12:22 Redite
In December 1771, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was back in Salzburg after his second four-month trip to Italy in the company of his father Leopold. The reception and the music commissioned were a success, but the main effort, aimed at securing a place for Amadeus at a respectable court, had not born fruit.
The last attempt had been nearly embarrassing, although the Mozart family never knew the details. Maria Theresa of Austria, mother of the first queen to meet the guillotine, Marie Antoinette, and of Archduke Ferdinand, governor of Lombardy, even jealously instructed the latter not to hire that family of musicians who were "rolling around the world like beggars".
As usual, Wolfgang was not deterred from his excellent willingness to work, and in the first months of 1772, he had already composed the three divertimentos K. 136-138, also known as the "Salzburg Symphonies", since Mozart set them up in three movements, typical of the "Italian" symphonies: fast - slow - fast.
Divertimenti: "Ambient Music" in the 18th Century
Divertimenti usually consisted of more than three movements, generally five, in some cases adding up to nine, as a remnant of the fading suite, the musical form from which the divertimenti appear to have originated.
Very popular in the 18th century, there are divertimenti for ensembles of three, four or five stringed or wind instruments, or some combination of them. Light in character, its purpose was no other than entertainment, a piece of pleasant background music while talking about state affairs, or blabbering about some petty palace intrigue.
Divertimento in D major
The work we are listening to is the Divertimento in D major K. 136, for string quartet or orchestra (or, "Salzburg Symphony No. 1"). It is the most popular of the three already mentioned. An essential piece in the modern chamber repertoire, a Russian conductor used to place it at the beginning of his concerts because "it is like offering a glass of champagne when the guests arrive".
The notation K. 136, according to Ludwig von Köchel's catalog (1862), states that this composition is preceded by no less than 135 opus numbers. These include about twelve operas and masses, and some twenty symphonies. Wolfgang Amadeus, at the time, was sixteen years old.
The rendition is by the American chamber ensemble New York Classical Players, made up of young talents who use to give free concerts in the New York metropolitan area.
In the late 1980s, the Estonian-born contemporary composer Lepo Sumera was strongly attracted to electroacoustic music and, seduced by the genre, decided to found the Electronic Music Studio at the Estonian Academy of Music in 1995, which he directed until 1999.
One of his best-known works in this genre is the multimedia work Heart Affairs, from that same year, which made use of the sounds of a human heart treated electronically. The performance was accompanied by images of echocardiograms, some of his own heart, which apparently never worked properly, as Sumera died the following year, precisely as a result of heart failure.
Works Born in the Estonian city of Tallinn in 1950, Sumera came to public attention in 1972 with his work In Memoriam, an orchestral tribute to his teacher and compatriot Heino Eller. After postgraduate studies at the Moscow Conservatory, he finished the composition of six symphonies, three concertos and numerous vocal and chamber works, which have been performed by numerous orchestras in North America and Europe, as well as Australia and Cuba.
Lepo Sumera (1950 - 2000)
The commitment Sumera is one of the few musicians who have added to their creative activity the concern and militant commitment to the society in which they live. During the years of Estonian independence from the late Soviet Union, the composer took an active part – albeit with the utmost diplomacy – in the so-called "Singing Revolution", while serving as Minister of Culture of his country.
"Piece from the year 1981"
While the modern orchestra was his primary medium of expression, during 1981 he composed two crucial pieces for solo piano, which he titled simply Two pieces from the year 1981. The first of these, even more simply, is entitled Piece from the year 1981.
The minimalist piece weaves a simple melody that is gradually enriched over a bass accompaniment as ostinato as it is hypnotic. Sumera held this work in high esteem as he would use it as the basis for his First Symphony of the same year.
The rendition is by the Estonian pianist Kadri-Ann Sumera, daughter of the composer.
As happened with a good number of musicians in the 19th century, the Austro-Hungarian composer Franz von Suppé first had to study law to please his father, before taking the bumpy road of music. But, after all, this was not such for the prolific author of nearly thirty operettas and almost two hundred compositions for various theatrical genres that were warmly applauded by Viennese audiences for almost half a century.
In Vienna
After the death of his father in 1835, his mother, who had not forgotten that in his childhood little Franz had shown great musical promise, took him with her to Vienna, where he obtained an honorary position as conductor at the Theater an der Josefstadt. In 1845 he moved to the historic Theater an der Wien, where he remained for almost twenty years. His last active years were spent conducting ballets and vaudevilles at the Carltheater in the suburbs of Vienna.
Light Cavalry
Although widely recognized in his time, Franz von Suppé is remembered today mainly for a handful of overtures. Among them, The Poet and Peasant and perhaps the most famous of all, the overture to Light Cavalry, deservedly stand out. The latter, an operetta in two acts with a libretto by Karl Costa, was premiered at the Carltheater on March 21, 1866.
Franz von Suppé (1819 - 1895)
The plot
The play tells the love story between Vilma, a beautiful young orphan raised by Hungarian villagers, and Hermann, whose uncle the mayor, an old man, also wants her even though Vilma is in his past lightcone. Only the ingenious tricks of a group of hussars – the Hungarian light cavalry – stationed in the village, will make possible the happy union of the young lovers.
The operetta is no longer performed today, but the overture's main theme has been widely used to accompany scenes of "galloping to the rescue of anything" in cartoons, television shows and various advertisements.
The rendition is by The Cleveland Orchestra, under Austrian conductor Franz Welser-Möst.
A majestic fanfare opens the overture. The famous tune is heard at minute 2:28.
Felix Mendelssohn came into the world in Hamburg on February 3, 1809, a year before his colleagues, Chopin and Schumann. The beautiful woman who accompanies these lines is his wife, Cécile Jeanrenaud, whom he met in Frankfurt in 1836 and with whom he fell madly in love upon seeing her. It took him only a year to take her to the altar, in 1837, when Felix was twenty-seven years old and Cécile, nineteen.
Such diligence and promptness may be due to the fact that by that time Mendelssohn was already a successful composer who, if necessary, could even count on the prompt financial assistance of his father, a successful banker, if he fell out of favor with the public. Cécile, more reserved, was the daughter of a Protestant pastor of Swiss origin who had managed to settle comfortably in Frankfurt.
Cécile was beautiful, cultured and elegant, although somewhat conventional. She would have loved to have had magnificent music accompanying her as she entered the Wallon Church in Frankfurt on the pastor's arm, but her husband's famous Wedding March did not yet exist. It would be composed five years later. Of course, they could have used Mozart's wedding march from The Marriage of Figaro, but it was not customary to perform wedding marches off stage.
The tradition of accompanying the wedding ceremony with a march was inaugurated somewhat later, in 1858, on the occasion of the wedding of Princess Victoria of Saxony with Frederick III of Germany. At the time, the princess chose two marches: the Mendelssohn piece and the wedding march of Wagner's opera Lohengrin, premiered in 1850. Since then, the tradition has remained firm, with Mendelssohn's work sweeping the preferences.
A Midsummer Night's Dream - Wedding March The hugely popular Wedding March is a piece from Mendelssohn's play A Midsummer Night's Dream, composed as incidental music to accompany the production of Shakespeare's play of the same name. Except the Overture, written when Mendelssohn was seventeen, the music was composed in 1842, at the request of Frederick William IV of Prussia.
The march is one of the five purely instrumental pieces, which together with the vocal sections, make up the fourteen pieces of the complete work.
Of its slightly less than five minutes of duration, only the first minute is played in the ceremony. In the original version, the famous motif is taken up again later on, although this time with a harmonic variation (4:09) that will lead to its conclusion.
In November 1793, the mother of Goethe, the German poet, had the opportunity to appreciate the enthusiasm that the performance of Mozart's Magic Flute aroused in the population of Frankfurt. Her impression, somewhat picturesque, was registered in her diary:
"Nothing new to note here, other than that The Magic Flute has been performed eighteen times and that every night the hall was full to the rafters. I don't think there is anyone who would dare to confess that he had not seen it. All the workers, the gardeners, and even the people of Sachsenhausen, whose children spend the day idle, queue up. Nothing like it has ever been seen before. The theater opens every day at four o'clock, yet hundreds of people are left without a place. They have made a lot of money!"
None of this Mozart saw, of course. He had died two years ago. But how he would have loved to live it!
Schikaneder, as Papageno. Ignaz Alberti engraving
Two years earlier, the premiere On the day of the premiere in Vienna, September 30, 1791, the audience was somewhat cold at the end of the first act. Only for the second and final act did it manage to cheer up, giving a warm welcome to this "implausible magical tale full of fantasies", in Goethe's opinion. However, Mozart was left with the feeling that instead of the music, the audience was celebrating the spectacular staging by Emanuel Schikaneder – author of the verses, the idea, impresario, singer and the one in charge of playing Papageno, the "bird catcher" of the Queen of the Night.
Papageno Of course, the ordinary public – Goethe's mother reminds us – could not remain indifferent to the fresh joviality of this "supporting actor", assistant to the protagonist Tamino who must rescue the princess and daughter of the Queen of the Night, kidnapped by a sinister character. For this purpose he has a flute –magical, by the way – and the invaluable help of this half-man, half-bird being, who supplies the Queen of the Night with birds in exchange for food.
Papageno - Papagena duet. A candid hero, Papageno, celebrates that Tamino falls in love with the princess at the mere sight of her portrait. And he wonders when love will inflame his own life; if there will be a Papagena. Apparently, there is one, but on the occasion, he loses her. At the end of the play, after many twists and turns, they meet again. This time it is for good. Papageno and Papagena will be one and will create a whole brood of little Papagenos and little Papagenas. That's what they sing.
The video begins with the last lines of the previous aria. As Papageno, the German baritone Detlef Roth. In the role of Papagena, the French soprano Gaële Le Roi.
