Webern, Variations for piano Op 27

A member of the Second Viennese School, a follower of Schoenberg, and one of the best known exponents of dodecaphonism, Austrian composer Anton Webern lived an extremely modest life and died an unfortunate death.
And while his influence and stature are now widely recognized, he left almost no followers, nor did he add many works to the standard repertoire.

Born in Vienna in 1883, he met Schoenberg at the beginning of the new century and worked with him for six years. Around that time he also became intimate with Alban Berg, who would be his great friend and atonalist colleague for many years. To earn a living after finishing his traditional studies, he began a career as a conductor in various and varied Austrian theaters, an activity that would be interrupted throughout the First War.

Interwar

In 1918 he took up the baton again, dedicating himself also to teaching while composing music that was never performed. In 1923 he took over the direction of a choral ensemble of Viennese workers, which lasted until 1934 when the association was banned by the Nazi authorities.

Black years begin for the composer who, married and with children, must work as a proofreader for music publishers.

World War II is on the horizon.

Anton Webern (1883 - 1945)

The fatality

At the age of sixty, he was mobilized. But he saved his life... until the war ended.

On September 15, 1945, at the home of one of his daughters, near Salzburg, he went out to smoke a cigarette, half an hour before curfew began. An American soldier shot and killed him by mistake.

Variations for piano op. 27

A considerable part of his work is devoted to voice and choirs, but he also wrote music for various instrumental groups or solo instruments. A work of special importance is his Variations for piano op. 27, composed in 1935-36, where his predilection for short forms is evident.

The work, constructed strictly according to twelve-tone procedures, consists of three minimal movements (just six minutes in total) in which, moreover, Webern dispensed completely with crescendos and diminuendos, marking the dynamic contrasts with frank and rough oppositions of forte and piano, the hallmark of almost all his work.

The rendition is by maestro Maurizio Pollini.

Brahms, Piano Concerto No 2

When he was about to turn forty and had become a renowned musician, Johannes Brahms – who did not feel comfortable with the "war of the romantics" led by Liszt, propelling the German romantic avant-garde – decided to settle permanently in Vienna, in 1872, far from the controversy. After a long search, he found two rooms for rent at No. 4 Karlsgasse. While there, he directed the most important music association of the city as well as made concert tours throughout Europe.

He also visited Italy on pleasure trips. In love with its landscapes, between 1878 and 1893 he made nine trips to the peninsula. After the first of them, he began the sketches of a second piano concerto, twenty-four years after the first, a youthful work composed at the age of 21. But he soon put it aside for the Violin Concerto of 1878. The piano concerto would be left for later.

Piano Concerto No 2

He would finish it three years later, in July 1881. A few months later, during the rehearsal of a different repertoire, he took the opportunity to play it with the orchestra of the pianist and conductor Hans von Büllow, the former son-in-law of Franz Liszt. The conductor sent the score to the seventy-year-old Hungarian celebrity asking for his opinion. Liszt, generous, replied directly to Brahms – who thirty years earlier had declined the invitation to join the romantic avant-garde – in the following terms:

Brahms (1833 -1897) by the time
of the 2nd concerto premiere

"At first reading, the work seemed a bit gray to me. But gradually I have come to understand it better. the work possesses the pregnant character of a distinguished work of art, in which thought and feeling move in noble harmony."

Premiere and diffusion
The public premiere took place in Budapest on November 27, 1881, to great success. Regarded as one of the two or three most difficult concertos in the piano repertoire, Brahms would obtain enormous satisfaction with it in the European cities where he made it known, usually in the company of von Büllow and his orchestra.

The rendition is by the outstanding Italian pianist Maurizio Pollini, accompanied by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado, also Italian, very young, both of them. Abbado is no longer in this world. Pollini, fortunately, still is.

Movements:

The work is in four movements. Brahms added a scherzo to the usual tripartite form:

00        Allegro non troppo - A lone horn calls out a simple eight-note melody, answered by the piano rising quietly from the lowest depths. An ensuing cadenza encompasses the entire keyboard.

17:40  Allegro appassionato (Scherzo) - It is the movement added to the usual three of the time. The reason Brahms gave was mere that the allegro was "too simple". And he was right because without it the lovely calm of the Andante would not have acted as an adequate contrast to the first movement.

26:40  Andante. The movement is initiated by the cello, the protagonist of an extended theme. Brahms will later use it to create a song.

39:20  Allegretto grazioso - Ebullient elegance and charm mark the finale’s main theme.

Boieldieu, Harp Concerto in C major

There have been minor composers in all ages. We call them so because their work has not lasted and only a tiny part of it has reached us. But in their time they were outstanding musicians who managed to make a living from their craft thanks to a good share of talent. They knew also celebrity and prestige. The Frenchman François-Adrien Boieldieu, a contemporary of Beethoven, was one of them.

Born in Rouen in 1775, at the age of eighteen he wrote his first opera. Later he specialized in "opéra comique", composing no less than 38 operas, earning him the place of the main French opera composer of the first quarter of the 19th century.

In 1804, he moved to St. Petersburg as a composer for the Tsar's court, with a commitment to produce three operas a year. He did not live up to such a high expectation but in the seven years he stayed there he managed to compose ten.

François-Adrien Boieldieu
(1775 - 1834)

Back in Paris, it was not difficult for him to win back the Parisian audience, but from 1823, when Gioachino Rossini settled there, something changed in the Parisian taste and he had to start dealing with the Rossinian crescendo. True to his style, Boieldieu wrote in response his masterpiece, the Dame Blanche, with enormous success in France and even internationally, as it remained in the European repertoire for decades.

Harp Concerto in C major, op 77

Boieldieu's instrumental repertoire is somewhat meager, although as a young man he wrote some pieces for piano. Having befriended Sebastian Erard, inventor of a new type of harp, he also wrote for this instrument. His concerto in C major, from 1801, is a striking and melodious work that retains to this day a central place in the standard repertoire.

Movements:

00       Allegro brillante

11:25  Largo

15:21  (atacca subito) Allegro agitato

The brilliant rendition is by Mexican harpist Baltazar Juárez, accompanied by the Orquesta Sinfónica Nacional de México, conducted by Rafael Payare.

Rachmaninoff, Piano Concerto No 3

The magnificent reception in 1901 of his Piano Concerto No. 2, together with the many merits gathered up to then by Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff as a conductor, led to the 29-year-old Russian pianist and composer being offered in 1904 the musical direction of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow. There he remained until 1906 when, due to the social tension that was shaking Russian life in all areas, he was forced to resign after an escalation of resignations of a good number of his collaborators, for political reasons.

Natalia and Sergei, around 1920

The good years
They were, however, the best years of Sergei Vasiliévich. In 1902 he had finally succeeded in marrying a cousin, an audacious idea that, among other obstacles, meant obtaining the permission of the tsar. In the company of Natalia Alexandrovna Natina, the composer and magnificent pianist began a long journey that took the happy couple to Italy and Dresden, waiting for events in Russia to normalize. This was followed by performances in England, Germany, and Holland. In the meantime, he completed two operas. At the peak of his career, Rachmaninoff had no doubt that the New World would one day claim his presence.

Trip to New York

The family's summer residence, "Ivanovka", served the couple as a bucolic rest between tours. Faced with the idyllic setting, Natalia feared that the maestro, who showed a certain tendency to sluggishness, would not work hard enough. On the contrary, with his eyes set on the prescient tournée, the composer did work intensively, and when in 1909 he was finally invited to New York, Rachmaninoff traveled there with his Third Piano Concerto entirely completed. With the composer as soloist, the concerto premiered on November 28 of that year, followed by successful tours of Philadelphia, Chicago, and Boston. In January 1910 Rachmaninoff made another appearance, this time accompanied by the New York Philharmonic conducted by Gustav Mahler.

The definitive departure

On his return to his homeland, the Russian stages dressed up every time the famous musician appeared as a piano player or conductor of the Moscow Philharmonic. But the Russian people were about to shake the world, and the First World War only precipitated the events. Sergei Rachmaninoff, a member of the Russian bourgeoisie, saw his way of life inevitably altered, and on December 22, 1917, taking advantage of a providential invitation, he got on a sleigh, with his wife and children, toward Helsinki. From there, the Rachmaninoffs would leave for the USA in October of the following year, never to return.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 3 in D minor

Fairly considered as the most remarkable of his works for piano and orchestra, it was at the same time resisted by many performers due to its almost insurmountable technical difficulties, as well as by the public who maintained their preference for the more melodious and compact Concerto No. 2. Rachmaninoff himself eliminated certain passages from the work to make it more "suitable for concert performances", although it has recently been performed again in its original version, which lasts about 40 minutes.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro ma non-tanto - Constructed in sonata-allegro form.
17:30  Intermezzo: Adagio: Theme and variations. It moves into the last movement, without pause, in:
29:02  Finale: Alla breve - Quick and vigorous, in sonata-allegro form.

The rendition is by Yuja Wang, accompanied by the Vienna Philarmonic conducted by Colombian maestro Andrés Orozco-Estrada.

Haydn in love, Sonata in E-flat

 
Franz Joseph Haydn was always aware that, in terms of looks, he was not an Adonis. According to one of his biographers, he once expressed that he could not understand how he had been loved by so many beautiful women in his life: "they could not have been captivated by my beauty", he said. However, at the age of 27, his first love affair not only failed to bear fruit but took the wrong path.

Maria Anna

While serving Count Morzin in Vienna, the composer became enthusiastic about Therese, the daughter of a hairdresser, but Therese was not cut out for marriage and soon after entered a religious order. The hairdresser father then offered the older sister, Maria Anna. In November 1760, they were married. Whole life will Maria Anna accompany Haydn, in a marriage that knew neither children nor happiness.

Luigia

A profound connoisseur of the personnel in his service, Prince Nicholas of Esterházy fully understood the reasons Haydn obliquely put forward for the mediocre Italian singer Luigia Polzelli to remain at court despite her scraggy talents when Nicholas wanted to dismiss her in 1780. Eighteen-year-old Luigia had arrived at the palace a year earlier, and shortly thereafter began a relationship with the maestro that lasted until 1791, when the relationship ran out of steam on its own.

Marianne

Apparently, the master was more interested in Mrs. Maria Anna von Genzingen, named Marianne in the intimacy. Wife of the personal physician of Prince Nicholas and an accomplished amateur pianist, she maintained with Haydn a mainly epistolary but abundant relationship, which only ended with her sudden death in 1793 at the age of 38. Haydn was sixty-one.

Sonata in E flat No. 59

For Marianne von Genzingen was written in 1790 the sonata for pianoforte in E flat, one of the most exquisite of the master. In a letter announcing his dedication to her, Haydn asks her special attention for the second movement:

"...for it contains many things which I shall analyze for your grace when the time comes; it is rather difficult but full of feeling."

Movements:

00        Allegro

08:03   Adagio e cantabile

17:28   Finale: tempo di minuet

The rendition is by the outstanding Austrian master Alfred Brendel.

Alkan, "Concerto" for solo piano - Finale

From his deathbed in October 1849, Frédéric Chopin bequeathed to one of his musician friends the method for piano he had been working on so that he could finish it. The chosen friend and recipient of this legacy was a pianist three years younger than Chopin. His name was Charles-Valentin Alkan, and he had been an extraordinary child prodigy who had entered the Paris Conservatory at the age of six, when the Polish musician was nine and could not imagine a future life in Paris.

The beginnings
Born in 1813 in the Jewish quarter of Paris to a musician father, Charles-Valentin Alkan got tired of winning first prizes at the Conservatory. The solfège was his first, at the age of seven. At eleven he won the piano prize; harmony at fourteen, and at twenty-one the organ prize. He quickly made a name for himself in the Parisian salons as a young and talented pianist, easily joining the intellectual circles in which Franz Liszt, Victor Hugo, Chopin, George Sand, and Délacroix were active. There was no shortage of evenings and recitals in which he was seen at the piano alongside Liszt or Chopin.

Charles-Valentin Alkan (1813 - 1888)

The isolation
But his markedly introverted nature drove him away from the madding crowd at age 25. The salons of Paris thus knew the first of his retreats. For the next 35 years, he appeared in public occasionally, albeit always back and forth. In 1853 he offered two highly acclaimed concerts. After this, despite his recognition and fame, the musician left the scene for the next twenty years, returning only in 1873 to offer six Petit Concerts in the halls of the Erard house.

Douze Études, opus 39 - Étude No 7
Little is known of Alkan's activity during his periods of seclusion, except that he read the Bible and, of course, composed like a man possessed. His catalog reached 76 opus numbers, mainly solo piano pieces, which claim superb technique. One of his most ambitious works is the set of Douze Études for piano, in all minor keys, from 1857. The twelve pieces comprise, in this order, a "symphony" (the first four), a "concerto for solo piano" (the next three), a theme with variations, an overture, and three independent pieces.
The Finale of the "concerto", Étude No. 7, is presented here.

The rendition is by Dutch pianist Bas Verheijden, recorded during a rehearsal.

Jean Sibelius, Violin Concerto

 

The Finnish composer Jean Sibelius suffered from something similar to what today we would call "stage fright". His first instrument was the violin, and his early performances as a young man gave him hope of becoming a virtuoso on the instrument. He was not in the wrong direction, because at the age of twenty he had a technique that allowed him to tackle demanding works quite properly, let's say Mendelssohn's Concerto, among them.

But he had begun to study the instrument formally a little late ‒at the age of fifteen ‒ and, perhaps too aware of it, he showed before the public a certain nervousness that prevented him from handling the bow with the required ease. He had to give up his dream, a painful renunciation that would be compensated by the universal recognition of his work as a composer in his maturity.

Violin Concerto in D minor, Op 47

But the renunciation was not total. Before he was forty, the composer was able to transfer his intimate knowledge of the violin to a work born of his own creative imagination, the Concerto for violin and orchestra in D minor, completed in 1903. Conducted by Sibelius, the work was premiered in Helsinki on February 8, 1904, but failed to captivate the public, being received rather coldly.

Jean Sibelius (1865 - 1957)

Somewhat surprised but not defeated, Sibelius withdrew the work from the stage to revise it. In October of the following year, Richard Strauss premiered a new, shorter version in Berlin. The public at large was not moved either. It was only in the thirties, after one of the most remarkable violinists of the twentieth century, the Lithuanian Jascha Heifetz recorded the work, that the concerto caught on with audiences thus becoming one of the most popular works of "nationalist" romanticism.

Maestro Sibelius once advised his pupils never to abuse the patience of the audience by writing long orchestral passages. In the revised version, Sibelius followed his own advice to the letter: the violinist begins the main theme four bars into the allegro and does not leave the center of the action for the entire half-hour of the concerto.

The rendition is by Korean American violinist Sarah Chang, accompanied by the Radio Philharmonic Orchestra of the Netherlands, conducted by Dutch conductor Jaap van Zweden.

Movements:

Allegro Moderato / Adagio di molto - 17:23 / Allegro, ma non tanto - 25:13

Chopin, Nocturne Op 9 No 3

 
The remarkable French pianist Marie-Felicité-Denise Pleyel, née Moke, and the pianist and piano maker Camille Pleyel, admirer and friend of Chopin, united their lives in 1831 shortly after Marie-Felicité-Denise broke up with her fiancé, the musician Hector Berlioz, whom she notified of her decision in a letter to Rome, where the musician was enjoying a scholarship. For a few days, Berlioz ruminated on an act of real revenge that included the execution of the pianist and then his suicide, although on the way to Paris he came to his senses, for Marie-Felicité-Denise's fortune and his own.

"La Camilla"
But the one who, to Berlioz's detriment, had won the favors of "la Camilla" – as Liszt and his friends called her, in Spanish – did not fare any better either. Only five years after swearing mutual fidelity and care in sickness and in health, they divorced after Camille Pleyel managed to prove to the authorities the multiple and repeated infidelities of Marie-Felicité-Denise, 23 years his junior. The case and other related matters were enough to perpetuate, among Pleyel's male colleagues, the image of the remarkable artist as a femme fatale.

Camille Pleyel (1788 - 1855)

Camilla's friends
Indeed, the friends of "la Camilla" were not few. Liszt in the foreground and documented lover. On a less affective level, Mendelssohn and Schumann, the writers Alexander Dumas and Gerard de Nerval, and the painter Eugene Délacroix were among her most famous admirers, whom, it seems, she did not shun while she was Madame Pleyel.

A triumphant career

The announced divorce, far from negatively affecting the already famous artist, was the starting point of an even more successful professional career. From 1836 to 1846 she made triumphant tours of France, Germany, Austria, Russia, and England, surprising the audiences with her virtuosity, which was exceptional for the time for a female pianist. Liszt, as a colleague, pointed her out as "not only a great pianist but one of the great artists of the world".

Marie Pleyel (1811 - 1875)

Madame Pleyel, dedicatée

Frédéric Chopin, to whom Camille Pleyel supplied pianos, could not stay behind in the recognition. The three nocturnes of Opus 9, published in Paris in 1832, are dedicated to her, "to Madame Pleyel", for that year she still was, properly.

Nocturne Op. 9 No. 3, in B major

According to connoisseurs, although less popular than its opus partners it is the most accomplished of the three. Anticipating the more mature nocturnes, this is the one that most clearly delineates the A-B-A pattern established by John Field, the inventor of the form.

A graceful if somewhat obscure melody opens the first section which, despite its simplicity, presents a challenge to the performer, who must stretch his or her ability to produce a delicate sound. The middle section (3:52) is more agitated, almost martial. An abrupt harmonic change at 5:12 allows the first section to be resumed.

The rendition is by Ukrainian pianist Anna Fedorova, born in Kyiv in 1990.