Alexander Scriabin, his first and only Piano Concerto

Having just graduated from the Moscow Conservatory, at the age of twenty-four Alexander Scriabin was already touring as a virtuoso pianist throughout Russia and part of Europe. He realized then that the time had come to show his skills as a composer of concertante works to the public. So, in the autumn of 1896, in just a couple of days, he completed his first and only piano concerto. It was his first work involving the orchestra, so its orchestration took him a little longer, but he finished it in May of the following year. A fervent admirer of Chopin in those years, his writing brings to mind the pianistic language established by the Polish genius fifty or more years earlier.

Although the composer, prone to mystical thinking, in his later years was drawn to more sophisticated areas of musical endeavor (including a certain flirtation with dodecaphonism), he never stopped performing his own concerto, which he did quite often. By that time, the concerto had also become a favorite of his former comrade at the Moscow Conservatory, Sergei Rachmaninoff, who conducted it in 1911 with Scriabin at the piano. Later, it would be Rachmaninoff himself who would sit at the piano to play it, in a tribute made in memory of Scriabin, in 1915, a few months after the author's death.

A. Scriabin (1872 - 1915)

Piano Concerto in F sharp minor, opus 20
Premiered on October 23, 1897, with Scriabin at the piano, the concerto is structured in the traditional manner, with three movements in the fast-slow-fast sequence, with a length of just under thirty minutes. As already mentioned, the atmosphere of the work clearly evokes Chopin's pianism, but the orchestral treatment shows a much more active and committed involvement of the orchestra than can be appreciated in the concertos of the Polish romantic master.

Movements
01:34  Allegro - The piano introduces the main theme, and then the orchestra takes over while the piano accompanies in octaves.

09:30  Andante - I's constructed in a novel and poetic form of theme and variations. Although written in major mode, the four variations are imbued with a nostalgic feeling.

18:01  Allegro moderato - More intensely expressive than the previous movements, its main theme is condensed into just the first two bars, to be followed by an extended and highly demanding arpeggio, no small challenge for Scriabin himself, a virtuoso with small hands.

The Slovenian pianist Ana Šinkovec Burstin is accompanied by the RTV Slovenia Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Simon Krečič.

Bach, Partita for violin No 2 - "Chaconne"

The celebrated instrumental piece popularly known as Bach's "chaconne in D minor" is the fifth and last movement of the Partita No. 2 in D minor, BWV 1004, composed around 1720 while the master, in his thirties, was a chapel master at the modest court of Köthen, where he remained for six years, from 1717 to 1723. Written for solo violin, without accompaniment, the work is one of the most complex, extensive, and demanding ever written for the instrument.

The violin

In Bach's time, the violin, recently invented in the middle of the 16th century, had reached its peak. Composers and instrumentalists such as Arcangelo Corelli and Giuseppe Torelli raised the art of violin music to new heights, supported by instruments from the hands of the master craftsmen Amatti, or Stradivari. Thus, the instrument succeeded in creating the interpreter as well. And together they created a different musical world that involved a new way of composing music for the violin.

Six solos for violin

Of course, Bach was not the first to compose music for solo violin. He was at least preceded by two German composers, J.J. Walther and J.G. Pisendel, the latter considered the greatest violinist of his time and whom Bach had the opportunity to meet in Weimar. But it will be Johann Sebastian who will take the genre to the highest perfection with the three sonatas and three partitas grouped in the Six Solos for Violin, whose autograph pages are preserved until today, pointing out in its title: "Sei solo a violino senza basso acompagnato. Libro Primo da Joh Seb Bach, ao 1720".

Partita No. 2 in D minor - Chaconne

Although the term is Italian, partita is the name by which the suite was known in Germany. The partita No. 2 includes an allemande, a courante, a sarabande, a gigue, and finally the chaconne, a movement with theme and variations that, unusually, Bach has extended to more than half the length of the complete partita. The basic theme consists of only four bars. Increasing the complexity of such a scarce bunch of music, Bach will add 64 variations to build almost fifteen minutes of the most sublime music in history, hailed by countless subsequent composers who have developed arrangements for the most diverse instruments or groups of these.

Brahms' opinion
One hundred and fifty years after its composition, Johannes Brahms wrote:

"The chaconne is in my opinion one of the most wonderful and mysterious works in the history of music. By adapting the technique to a small instrument, a man describes a whole world with the deepest thoughts and the most powerful feelings. If I could imagine myself writing, or even conceiving such a work, I am sure that the extreme excitement and emotional tension would drive me mad."

The rendition is by the late Russian master Nathan Mirounovich Milstein.

Mozart, Serenade No. 11, for eight winds

In a letter dated July 27, 1782, Mozart tells his father Leopold that he has been working in a hurry on the composition of a new serenade. But the serenade was not so new. What Wolfgang was doing was a revision of an earlier serenade for six wind instruments, which now had to be written for eight. Having settled in Vienna only a year earlier as a free pianist and composer, Mozart had heard about the brand-new wind orchestra that Emperor Joseph II had just added to his court. Unusually, the ruler had put together an ensemble with eight instrumentalists instead of six. Adapting the music to the emperor's tastes is what Mozart was urgently in need of.

The original serenade is a piece composed on the occasion of the feast of St. Therese, for the sister-in-law of Monsieur von Hickl, the court painter, in whose house it was first performed on October 15, 1781. In a letter to his father dated November 3, Mozart points out the main motive for its composition: the interest in winning the favor of Mr. von Strack, musical advisor to the Emperor, and assiduous visitor to Hickl's house. To our delight, Mozart, in his salty style, gives us some glimpses of Viennese musical life at the time:

"The six gentlemen who executed it are poor beggars who, however, play quite well together, particularly the first clarinet and the two horns.  But the chief reason why I  composed it was to let  Herr von  Strack,  who goes there every day, hear something of my composition;  so  I  wrote it rather carefully.  It has won great applause too and on  St. Theresa's  Night it was performed in three different places; for as soon as they finished playing it in one place,  they were taken off somewhere else and paid to play it."

We assume that Herr von Strack did hear the serenade. Unfortunately for Mozart, the Emperor's advisor never cared to get closer to the Salzburg genius.

Serenade No. 11, in E-flat, K. 375, for eight winds

The original version was written for two clarinets, two horns, and two bassoons. The emperor's generous grouping imposed the addition of parts for two oboes. This is the version usually heard today. At just over 25 minutes in length, the work is in five movements:

00:00  Allegro maestoso

07:00  Menuetto

11:07  Adagio (the slow movement that fully justifies the term "serenata")

17:15  Menuetto

20:04  Allegro

The release is by the Scottish National Orchestra Wind Ensemble, conducted by Paavo Järvi.

Béla Bartók, Piano Concerto No 1, with Yuja Wang

Recognized as a remarkable pianist as well as composer, the Hungarian Béla Bartók composed three concertos for piano and orchestra during his lifetime. The first one was written between August and November 1926 and premiered in Frankfurt on July 1, 1927, with the composer as the soloist.

With Concerto No. 1 for piano and orchestra, Bartók intended to showcase his mastery as a composer as well as his skills as a virtuoso pianist. And he did just that. The work features great technical difficulties not only for the pianist but also a challenge for the orchestra... and the audience. In Bartók's own words:

"My first concerto [...] I consider it a successful work, although its style is up to a point difficult, perhaps even very difficult for the orchestra and the public."

A new language
Bartók thus initiated the exploration of a new language, dressing the piano in the garb of percussion instruments. Considered the apotheosis of the cluster (a cluster of adjacent notes played simultaneously) and dissonant counterpoint, the work received a lukewarm response in Germany, which was nevertheless not unaware of its agitated syncopation, its fiery percussion and "primitive" rhythm reminiscent of Stravinsky.

Béla Bartók (1881 - 1945)

In the US
Enthusiastic, the author soon set off on a tour of the United States. But the American critics didn't like the concert at all (neither, we suppose, did the public). One bloodthirsty critic even wrote that he had just heard... "one of the most appalling avalanches of bombastic nonsense and blunders ever perpetrated before an audience."

Pure bravura
But none of this bothered Bartók. What's more, the composer would not give up the new style. Nevertheless, due in part to its enormous difficulties, Concerto No. 1 has remained the least attended and listened to of the three he composed. And the truth is that the effort is worth it. And well worth it. It is pure concentrated bravura.

Movements

00:00  Allegro moderato - Allegro: Intense but calm beginning with the orchestra in the lower registers, the piano makes its entrance without greater virtuoso demand, attacking a single note, which then goes in octaves, for greater percussive emphasis. Soon, glissandos and dissonances follow. The movement ends with a sort of orchestral whiplash.

10:00  Andante - attacca (attacca: indicates that there is no pause between the second and third movements): Desolation best describes this section, perhaps because the strings are not involved. At times, the piano only accompanies the percussion.

18:08  Allegro molto: It is initiated by drums and trombone glissandos. The piano joins in instantly with its own extended glissando and then becomes a percussion instrument. Or almost, for there are clusters everywhere (for example min 21:25), three-octave glissandos (min 24:24), and jumps at incredible speeds. All this, in permanent syncopation with the orchestra. The movement ends abruptly as if the sound mass had crashed against a wall.

The performance is by Yuja Wang, superb, at the piano. The outstanding artist is accompanied by the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by the Finnish conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen. 

The concert lasts 25 minutes. The rest is applause, in fruitless expectation that the charming Miss Wang would give an encore, which she did not do, presumably because in the piano literature there is no short piece that after this performance would not be a nonsense purpose.

Beethoven, Piano Sonata Op 2 No 3

Ludwig van Beethoven's date of birth is often given as December 16, 1770. But the only thing that is documented is his baptism date, December 17, 252 years ago.
Beethoven may well have been born the day before. In those days it was customary to perform the baptism a few days later, due to the strong religiosity of the time, and because the infant could die, as well. But, we've read somewhere that – with all due respect –  it is highly unlikely that the parents of little Ludwig decided to baptize him the day after his birth if we remember that Johann, the father, already in those years drowned his sorrows with alcohol and greeted the good times in the same way. So if he did celebrate the birth as usual he was not in a position to celebrate the sacrament the following day.

In short, we are still determining when Beethoven was born. This blog pays tribute to him today on the day he was baptized, in Bonn, in 1770.

Sonatas from Opus 2, dedicated to Haydn
After settling permanently in Vienna in 1792, Beethoven took composition lessons with Maestro Franz Joseph Haydn, then a sixty-year-old celebrity based in London, who from time to time appeared in the capital of the Habsburg empire, to give lessons and visit his friends. But they did not get along well, and after two years Beethoven left his teacher. Later he would take lessons with Antonio Salieri, but he would never forget the old Haydn, to whom the first three piano sonatas, grouped in Opus 2, would be dedicated.

The three sonatas were composed around 1794, almost simultaneously, and premiered in the autumn of 1795 in the salons of one of his noble friends, Prince Carl von Lichnowski, in an evening attended by Joseph Haydn. They were published in March of the following year by Artaria, the Viennese publishing house of Haydn himself.

Sonata Opus 2 No. 3 in C major - Movements

Beethoven borrowed here material from a work of his youth, the Piano Quartet No. 3. Like its opus 2 counterparts, the sonata is broadly conceived, with four movements instead of three, this time adding a brief scherzo as the third movement.

00       Allegro con brio

11:33  Adagio Surprising in its simplicity, one of Beethoven's most beautiful slow movements.

20:23  Scherzo - allegro

23:28  Allegro assai

The performance is by Chilean maestro, Claudio Arrau. Beethovenfest, Bonn, 1977.

G. Rossini: "La calunnia", bass aria from "Il Barbiere di Siviglia"

The popular aria "La calunnia", which has taken, as usual, its title from its first verse "La calunnia è un venticello", is an aria belonging to the first act of Rossini's 1816 opera buffa The Barber of Seville, based on Beaumarchais' work. It has also been present in the versions of Giovanni Paisiello and other authors – with another melody, naturally – but the one that has become famous is Rossini's.

It is one of the many pieces for bass voice written throughout the history of opera. It has been used to portray the most diverse characters, be they venerable elders, priests, great lords, rulers of all kinds, laughable veterans, or sinister ones. These are the roles that are destined for this deep, tremendously dark voice, which can also be comic, and of course, amazingly beautiful.

Common bass voice register

The contrivance of a calumny

The character who sings Rossini's La calunnia belongs to the category of sinister old man. The text, shameless, should be sung by a villain, even in a buffo tone. The chosen one is Don Basilio, musical tutor of the young and beautiful orphan Rosina, to whom her preceptor, Don Bartolo, pretends despite the age difference.

But the girl has fallen in love with the Count of Almaviva, who goes around prowling for her. Don Basilio then recommends the invention of a slander, a great slander, which eventually will irremissibly damage Almaviva, driving him away from Bartolo's domain.

The words

Superbly enhanced by Rossini's music through its applauded crescendos, the words describe from its beginning the unseemly process of slander: a little wind that barely moves until its transformation into the thunderous firing of a cannon, without even hiding the disastrous consequences for the poor slandered wretch.

Premiere
The bass who premiered it, on February 20, 1816 at the Teatro Argentina in Rome, was the Italian Zenobio Vitarelli. Since then, countless famous basses have played it, among them the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin.

Originally written in D major, in modern times there has been a tendency to transpose the aria to C major. This is the case of the version presented here, by British artist Robert Lloyd.

Don Bartolo (Carlos Feller), present in the scene, listens suspiciously to the infamous recommendation.

JS Bach, on his way to infinity, today. Brandenburg Concerto No. 2

Of the historical-musical fact surrounding the sending of six instrumental concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg, only a couple of things are known with certainty: the date, March 24, 1771, noted by Bach in the dedication; the copy of the manuscripts was made by Bach himself; and that he accompanied the material with a very delicate dedication that today would make the most submissive and humble of servants pale... if servants would exist today...

After that, only remain diverse inquiries: if the Margrave acknowledged receipt; if in what place and time they were written; and the most ominous of all conjectures: if the noble dedicatee, Christian Ludwig, ever had them performed by the musicians of his court.

In the scenario of the presumptions, they were composed in Köthen, mostly. But not necessarily for the Margrave. Bach may have taken earlier works or passages of them to make up the set of six concertos in order to fulfill the commitment he had made to the nobleman several years ago. However, there are some certainties following the offering. The manuscripts were found among the belongings of the Margrave's heirs, and the complete work was published for the first time in Leipzig in 1850, in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of its author's death. And rather more modernly, let us note that the Voyager 1 space probe, which at this very moment continues unperturbed on its voyage to the stars, has engraved on its gold disc its calling card, the first movement of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 2.

The extraterrestrial listener will not be disappointed. Let us point out that the concertos are written for different instruments, and this one, No. 2, is remarkable for its unusual combination of soloists. The melody is carried at one moment by the trumpet, at others by the violin, or by the oboe. And of course, the trumpet, as a rule, sounds louder than the other instruments. That is why this concerto has been jokingly called Concerto for Trumpet and Any Other Instrument.

Fortunately, for the rest of the soloists, the trumpet does not feature in the second movement, written in a different key, because at that time the instrument was not able to play in any key.

Brandenburg Concerto No 2 in F major, BWV 1047
Its title in the autograph score reads, in Italian, Concerto 2º à 1 Tromba, 1 Flauto, 1 Hautbois, 1 Violino, concertati, è 2 Violini, 1 Viola è Violone in Ripieno col Violoncello è Basso per il Cembalo. That is, the concertino (or group of solo instruments) is made up of the trumpet, the recorder (which in some ways resembles the one required of today's school children), the oboe, and the violin. The ripieno (the remaining instruments) consists of two violins, viola, cello and harpsichord.
The trumpet, indeed, has an outstanding contribution, highly virtuosic, in the first and third movements. In the second, flute, oboe, and violin dialogue intimately.

Movements:
Lasting about twelve minutes, it is structured in the Vivaldian manner: fast - slow - fast movements:
00:18  'Allegro moderato' (the original has no tempo indication, and is sometimes performed a little faster, allegro).
05:14  Andante
08:55  Allegro assai

Claudio Abbado and the Orchestra Mozart perform Johann Sebastian Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 in F major, BWV 1047 at the Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia, Italy (2007).

Beethoven, "Hammerklavier" Sonata / Yuja Wang

For English speakers, the popular title of "Hammerklavier" that Beethoven's sonata No. 29 bears may seem rather rude. That title could suggest the idea of a sonata in which the pounding of the piano is a necessity. Nothing could be further from that.
The title, which the work shares with the preceding sonata, is simply the German word for "pianoforte." Beethoven wanted to thank the English piano builder Broadwood, who had recently sent him a modern piano with swinging strings. It is for this modern piano that the sonata is written: Große Sonate für das Hammerklavier, its full title.

It is a cliché to say that this monumental sonata is the most respected and studied by music lovers, but at the same time, the least loved or liked of the 32 sonatas by the master from Bonn. Regarded as unplayable by many 19th-century pianists (with the remarkable exception of Liszt), it is the first sonata for which Beethoven added metronomic indications, specifying the speed at which it should be played.

The required speed

This requirement, added to those inherent to the craft, has led renowned performers to suggest that the master's metronome must have been damaged because the speed demanded seems unattainable. On the contrary, those who trust in the goodness of the artifact of those years claim that Beethoven simply created a work that is sustainable at a certain speed and no other. We believe that the truth is on the side of the latter.

The length

Lasting about 45 minutes at the required speed, it is the longest sonata written by the master and at the same time the most difficult. As for its structure, Beethoven returned this time to organize the sonata in four movements, which he had not done since 1802 (opus 31 No. 3).

Four movements

The initial allegro is introduced by a few measures whose most relevant characteristic is its rhythmic aspect.
It is followed by a brief scherzo of just under three minutes.
In opposition, the subsequent adagio (which here goes as the third movement and not second as was common) is one of the longest slow movements in all piano literature, about twenty minutes, and one of the most dramatic written by Beethoven: appassionato e con molto sentimento, the master noted.
The last movement is the most ambitious, the one containing the famous fugue, in three voices, whose theme or subject extends for ten bars (min 34:15, in this version) and not the typical two or three of the baroque fugue, thus raising the technical and interpretative demand to incredible extremes.

Dedication

Like so many others, the work is dedicated to Archduke Rudolph of Austria, the highest-ranking aristocrat and the most cultured of Beethoven's noble friends. Composed between the summer of 1817 and the autumn of 1818, it is inserted in the vital period of the master in which deafness is total and hopeless. It is in these circumstances that the master of Bonn will reach the highest point in the piano production of his last period.

Sonata No. 29 in B flat major, Op. 106

00:00 Allegro

11:24 Scherzo: Assai vivace

14:12 Adagio sostenuto - appassionato e con molto sentimento

31:50 Largo - Allegro - Fuga: Allegro risoluto

The rendition is by the brilliant Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, in a recital on May 14, 2016, at the legendary Carnegie Hall, where not for being in New York the audience does not cough between movements (Yuja didn't find it funny at all).

Liszt, Études d'exécution transcendante / No 12, "Chasse-neige"

Liszt's famous studies known today as Transcendental Études took the author a good number of years to finish. The first seed dates from when the author was fifteen years old, and already had pupils, in Paris. Ten years later, the author revised the twelve original studies and proceeded to intensify the technical difficulties, since at that time he was himself a piano virtuoso. The final version would be published in 1852 under the title Douze Études d'Exécution Transcendante, dedicated to his teacher, Karl Czérny.

For practicing, or a challenge?
In this way, Liszt added his contribution to the current custom of writing works for piano intended for the practice and improvement of technical skills on the instrument. The most prominent contribution to the tradition up to that time was Chopin's Etudes, in two series, opus 10 and 25, the first of them dedicated precisely to Franz Liszt. But unlike the Polish composer, Liszt's Études do not have such a clear didactic intention. They do not seem to be designed for the practice of this or that specific technical difficulty, but rather as a challenge to the already experienced performer.

Chopin vs Liszt
Thus, for example, it is a general opinion that in order to approach Etude No. 4, Mazeppa, one must first have the skill that allows you to play "double thirds" with ease. On the other hand, with Chopin's Etudes, a pianist with, let us say, a timid left hand, may well decide to spend some time preparing the Revolutionary Etude precisely in order to transform this "timidity" into gallantry.

Etude No. 12 in B-flat minor, "Chasse-neige"
The twelve Etudes are rather heterogeneous in their conception. There are those of "pure music" as well as "programmatic". To the latter category belongs the last of the series, the one Liszt called "Chasse-neige". ("Pure" or "programmatic", all bear evocative or descriptive titles except No. 2 and No. 10). It is one of the five that pose the greatest technical difficulties of the entire series. The title alludes to a sort of "snowstorm" although the music itself is rather more tempestuous than an ordinary snowstorm might suggest.

The rendition is by Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa.

Erik Satie, "Embryons desséchés", pour piano

The clever and witty Erik Satie gained the recognition of his peers (or anything resembling it) when he was well into his forties. And here his colleague and friend Maurice Ravel had a unique role to play. In 1911 the author of the famous Bolero organized a monographic concert in Paris with works by Satie. It was the only occasion on which the Parisian public attended an evening entirely dedicated to pieces by the composer, the same one who twenty years earlier had astonished a few and baffled others with his now famous Gymnopédies.

From then on, his solo piano music gained great momentum. He had long since passed his "cabaret" stage, but he had not forgotten his sense of humor. During 1912-13 a series of humorous compositions came to light, which he titled in a somewhat outlandish way, adding comments to the score for the performer and, in passing, ignoring the bar division lines. From that period are, for example, Deux Preludes pour un Chien, Descriptiones Automatiques, and Embryons desséchés.

Embryons desséchés, pour piano ("Desiccated embryos")
Barely six minutes long, the piece is made up of three even more extravagantly titled sections, taken from the names of invertebrate beings that Satie came across in a school encyclopedia. But, there are no mentions here about embryos, desiccated or not.

Erik Satie, in 1820
(1866 - 1925)

What you do find are "quotations" to works by other authors.
The second piece contains a quotation from Chopin. In the "comments" for the performer, we read: "And then they all began to cry (quote from Schubert's famous mazurka)". As far as we know, Schubert never wrote a mazurka (let alone a famous one). The real quote is to the Interlude of the Funeral March (Sonata in B♭ minor), clearly not by Schubert but by Chopin, with which Satie toys for a couple of bars.

The "expression guides"
And as usual, the score is not lacking in "character indications" with which the author ousted the usual tempo and expression indications, replacing them with, say: Light as an egg - Like a nightingale with a toothache - Moderately, I beg you - A little bit warm, and the like.

Sections

00:00  d'Holothurie

02:13  d'Edriophthalma (3:02, the "quotation" from Chopin begins)

04:42  de Podophthalma

The rendition is by Ukrainian pianist Dina Pisarenko, during a break in the rehearsal/recording of another work, with orchestra.

Beethoven, Sonata violin & piano "Spring"

Beethoven wrote ten sonatas for violin and piano in the span of fourteen years, from 1798 to 1812, although nine of them were born during a much shorter period, from 1798 to 1803, the year the famous "Kreutzer" Sonata was published. Almost ten years elapsed, then, between this famous ninth sonata and the last, of 1812, thus completing the corpus of ten sonatas that in the chamber works of the master from Bonn are graciously placed in second place in importance, only surpassed by the string quartets.

Sonata No 5 was composed between 1800 and 1801 when the beginnings of deafness were starting to worry him. Even so, it is a quiet and fruitful period for the master, established in Vienna since 1792. Composed along with Sonata No. 4, it is contemporary with the Piano Concerto No. 3 and the First Symphony.

"Spring" Sonata
Published in 1801, it is dedicated to Count Moritz von Fries, Beethoven's generous patron and recurrent dedicatee of his work (the Seventh Symphony would be dedicated to him). Also known as the "Spring" sonata, together with the Kreutzer they are the only two sonatas to bear the title with which they became popular after the composer's death.

Sonata No. 5 in F major, opus 24 - Movements
Its first sketches date from around 1795, so the Mozartian influence in it is somewhat visible, or if you prefer, "audible", in all the sections that make it up. This is a four-movement structure that Beethoven would use for the first time in this genre, although it should be noted that the added scherzo lasts a minute and a bit longer. Its complete audition takes just over twenty minutes.

00:00   Allegro – The violin sings, generously lyrical, over a delicate piano accompaniment.

11:51   Adagio molto espressivo – A nostalgic melody, first introduced by the piano.

18:10   Scherzo: Allegro molto – Deliberately asynchronous moments between the two instruments.

19:32   Rondo: Allegro ma non troppo – Perhaps the most "Mozartean" of the movements.

The rendition is by German violinist Anne-Sophie Mutter and American pianist Lambert Orkis.

Chopin, "Tragic Polonaise", op 44

 
Although everybody wrote polonaises (there are those of Telemann, Mozart and Schubert, and the path will be continued by Mussorgsky and Tchaikovsky) the most famous and outstanding ones are due to Chopin's inspiration. An important part of the Polish composer's life was occupied by the creation of works in the Polonaise form. The first was written at the age of seven; the last, in 1846, three years before his death. The one that concerns us today was written in 1840 and published in Paris the following year. It was once called "tragic polonaise" but such a calamitous epithet no longer seems necessary. After all, it is a dance. In addition, the year 1841 had begun one of Chopin's most fruitful periods.

A "mixed" polonaise
In spite of its name, it is a " compound " piece, that is, mixed, because in the most unexpected way Chopin inserts a tempo di mazurka in the very center of the piece. His friend Liszt will be pleasantly surprised by such an occurrence and will point this out in a review of its Paris audition. In his usual flowery style, he will note that: "... In the pages of the greatest composers we have seen nothing comparable to the impression produced by this passage, abruptly interrupted by a country scene, by a mazurka in an idyllic style, which has the fragrance of mint and oregano".

The Komar ladies
The work is dedicated to the youngest of the Komar sisters, prominent ladies of the Polish émigré community in Paris, and enthusiastic friends of art in all its forms. By this time, however, the sisters no longer had that surname. Ludmila, dedicatée of the Polonaise, is now Princess Ludmila de Beauvau, having just married Charles-Just de Beauvau-Craon. Her sister Delfina, although divorced from her Count Potocki, will still be recognized as Delfina Potocka. For her there will be also an attentive regard (she is his pupil): Chopin will dedicate to her his popular "Minute Waltz", in 1847.

Polonaise in F sharp minor, opus 44

Three clear sections, preceded by a fiery crescendo, are distinguished in the piece:

00:20   The polonaise proper, martial, haughty, provocative.

03:00   A long episode in triple eighth notes, which seems to simulate a drum roll.

04:35   In the middle, the unforeseen mazurka, inserted by Chopin in the heart of a vehement piece. Thanks to his genius, this interlude will lead to the resumption of the introduction (7:50) and the first rhythmic theme (8:01).

In Liszt's words, the piece ends "with a somber murmur that leaves the soul caught in a blanket of disconsolation." Hence, perhaps, the tragic connotation mentioned at the beginning.

The rendition, immaculate, is by the Canadian pianist Charles Richard-Hamelin.

Haydn: Concerto for Trumpet and orchestra

The trumpeter Anton Weidinger, a member of the Vienna court orchestra at the end of the 18th century, did not feel comfortable with the instrument of that time, which was not capable, for example, of producing the sounds of a chromatic scale, the one including semitones. Faced with such a severe limitation, he devoted several years to finding a solution, achieving in 1792 the invention of a trumpet with keys that allowed it to produce semitones. Though the new device reduced the quality of its timbre, the instrument could sing melodiously, as well as a clarinet or a flute.
A friend of Joseph Haydn, Weidinger asked the old Austrian master to compose a concerto to try out his new instrument.

Concerto for trumpet and orchestra
By that time Haydn had ceased to serve in the palaces of the Esterházy family (with whom he remained for 30 years). And his last efforts were devoted to the production of great choral works (The Creation oratorio, among them) rather than the elaboration of pieces for solo instrument. However, he felt intrigued by Weidinger's request, and by the autumn of 1796, he had finished composing the Concerto for trumpet and orchestra in E flat major, the only concerto that the maestro composed for this instrument, and at the same time, the first one written for a trumpet capable of playing chromaticism.

Premiere and reception
A diligent instrumentalist, trumpeter Weidinger spent four years practicing his invention with minor works until he felt capable of tackling the novel contribution to the repertoire that emerged from Haydn's inventiveness. And so the master's most celebrated solo concerto was premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on March 22, 1800, with Weidinger on trumpet, as expected. It was a successful premiere. However, the manuscript was never published during the composer's lifetime. Nor was it later. It disappeared for decades, until it was rediscovered in the late 19th century by a trumpeter of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. (Its first recording dates only from 1938).
Weidinger's invention was surpassed as early as 1813, with the invention of the three-piston trumpet, the germ of the current trumpet in use in symphony orchestras.

Movements

Brilliantly orchestrated, the concerto fully serves the new technical capabilities of the instrument, in its three movements: in the Allegro, with a new stock of notes in the low register; in the second movement, it exposes its lyrical and expressive potential; in the last movement, it allows the soloist to display all his skill with the new technical effects.

00:00  Allegro

06:41  Andante

09:48  Finale. Allegro

The rendition, superb, is by jazz trumpeter (and much more, as it turns out) Wynton Marsalis, very young, accompanied by the Boston Pops Orchestra conducted by the brilliant film music composer John Williams.

S. Revueltas, "Sensemayá", a tone poem

 
A song to kill a snake
 "Sensemayá" is a symphonic poem by Mexican composer Silvestre Revueltas inspired by some verses of Cuban poet Nicolás Guillén, which bear that title accompanied by the apostille "canto para matar una culebra" (song to kill a snake). Originally written for chamber ensemble in 1937, a year later the author transcribed the work for wind and string orchestra with the participation of no less than fourteen percussion instruments. A paradigm of rhythmic complexity, it is the author's most performed work worldwide and a highlight of his musical production, to which he dedicated only the last ten years of his short life.

United States and Mexico
In fact, Revueltas began to compose "seriously" at the age of thirty. Born in 1899 in a municipality in the state of Durango, he began his violin studies at the age of eight, and as a teenager, he completed his musical training in violin and composition in the United States. Before committing himself to musical creation, he visited Mexico on multiple occasions offering recitals until 1929, when his fellow countryman Carlos Chávez invited him to take over the position of the assistant conductor in the Symphony Orchestra of Mexico, recently created by Chávez and of which he was its director.

Silvestre Revueltas (1899 - 1940)

A musician and intellectual
He remained in that position until 1935, when both artists broke up. Revueltas, a musician and intellectual, defender of the rights of musicians and workers, chose to create his own orchestra, which had a short life. He would then intensify his activity as a composer, although without much effort to disseminate it: during his life he published very little, practically nothing. At his death, he was virtually unknown outside Mexico. His last years were marked by discouragement and consequent dipsomania that led him to spend time in sanatoriums.

Pablo Neruda
Now considered one of the most original musicians of the 20th century, Silvestre Revueltas died poor and forgotten. But not for everyone. The Chilean poet Pablo Neruda attended the funeral ceremony and read there a poem dedicated to him that would later become part of his monumental Canto General. The "minor oratorio" – that is what Neruda called it – ends with these words:

"Ahora son las estrellas de América tu patria
y desde hoy tu casa sin puertas es la Tierra"

(Now the stars of America are your homeland / and from today your house without doors is the Earth)

The work
From 1930 onwards, Silvestre Revueltas produced more than ninety percent of his catalog, which includes orchestral pieces, vocal, chamber, and theater music. Also, around 1935 he successfully ventured into music for the cinema (Mexican, naturally).
He is the author of six symphonic poems, the last of them, Sensemayá, a little less than seven minutes long, and which for its effectiveness in musically illustrating a ceremony (the Cuban rite of killing a snake) has been compared to what Stravinski achieved with respect to pagan Russia with The Rite of Spring.

Hobart Earle conducts the Odessa Philharmonic Orchestra, in July 2012, with an illustrative introduction.

Igor Stravinsky, a brief story / "Firebird" ballet - Finale

Igor Feodorovich Stravinsky was the third of four children of a famous singer of the Russian Imperial Opera and a mother to whom he "only felt duties", according to his own confession. His siblings bored him to the extreme, so little Igor had to manage to find a note of joviality in an oppressive childhood. His only joy seemed to come from the care of his wet nurse, whom he kept an emotional memory of all his life and whom he mourned more than his own mother when she died.

The Music, or the Law
Fortunately, the family's musical evenings provided a fruitful breath of life and encouraged his taste for music. At the age of 9, he began his first piano lessons, and at 11 he was dazzled when he attended the opera for the first time. Soon after, he was present at the premiere of Tchaikovsky's Pathétique Symphony, and this time, he was spellbound. At the same time, he was composing his first pieces. Everything seemed to be going wonderfully for the young Igor to make music a career. Still, the ominous fate of the young Russian musical promises stood before him and he had to enter the Faculty of Law at the age of eighteen.

The master Nicolai
Only his acquaintance with the composer Nicolai Rimsky-Korsakov saved him from his juridical fate. Although he frowned upon his first works, he finally took him into his home for three years to teach him the trade, introducing him to musical forms and their language, and supporting him in the orchestration of his own piano scores. Master Nicolai, perhaps unwittingly, thus became the only musician from whom Stravinsky later acknowledged having learned something.

Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

Meeting Diaghilev
The year 1908 he already had several scores to his credit, applauded by the public and critics. All that was missing was a bit of luck. This came in the form of a concert where two of his works were performed and attended by an attentive spectator, Sergei Diaghilev, the creator of the Ballets Russes, the latest sensation in Paris at the time. Sergei did not delay in asking Stravinsky to orchestrate Chopin's music for a projected future ballet to be called The Sylphides.

The Firebird
Igor was happier than ever. Even so, he did not imagine that celebrity was just around the corner and that he was going to conquer it overnight. Indeed, in the late summer of 1909, he received a telegram from Diaghilev commissioning him to write the score for the ballet The Firebird, scheduled for the next season of the Ballets Russes. Despite the short deadline 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 unsettled some dancers, so much so that the famous Anna Pavlova refused to dance "such barbarities". Tamara Karsavina (in the "photo") had to replace her.

Le tout Paris was immediately seduced by Stravinsky's music and by the costumes and the innovative sets of the staging. The dazzling and enchanting music of the young 28-year-old master will greatly influence the choreographic activity, revitalizing an art that seemed exhausted, due to so many pas de deux. The Firebird will put an end to them forever, taking the tutus with him in passing.

Listening "with other ears"

The rendition, as a suite for orchestra, is by the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Pierre Boulez, and features the last tableaux: Danza Infernal, Berceuse, and Finale (the whole ballet lasts fifty minutes, circa).
One last word. It is not easy to distinguish in this music tunes that can be hummed, but as it is already more than one hundred years old, I think it is time to make an effort to listen to it "with other ears". To do so, we should abandon for a few minutes the sonorous and harmonic schemes of the 19th century and earlier.

Igor Stravinski, the pianist / Petrushka - Three Movements / Yuja Wang

For a Russian composer temporarily settled in Paris in 1921 and facing the rigors of the post-war period, the offer of five thousand francs for the composition of a piano piece was not negligible. That was the sum the piano virtuoso Arthur Rubinstein promised Igor Stravinsky for a Russian character piece in which he could display his grandiose technique.

Three Movements from Petrushka

Stravinsky recalled the pieces he had sketched in 1911 for an orchestral piece with prominent piano participation, which he had reoriented into a ballet at the behest of Russian impresario Sergei Diaghilev. Those sketches and excerpts from the ballet eventually formed the solo piano piece Three Movements of Petrushka, ten years after the debut of the successful ballet starring Petrushka, the puppet that comes to life, in the Russian tradition.

Stravinsky, the pianist

Rubinstein, the dedicatee of the work, was highly pleased with it, performing it on numerous occasions. Of course, he was also interested in making known the piano work of the Russian composer, whom, until today, we do not easily relate to piano writing, although Stravinsky was an extremely talented pianist who, during most of his adult life, devoted half of each year to giving concerts and the other half to composing.

The Path
Prior to the undertaking that culminated in the Three Movements, the future author of The Rite of Spring and The Firebird had surprised musical circles in his twenties with a piano sonata in 1903. Then came, in 1908, the Four Studies of opus 7, which already showed maturity and a piano language full of promise. But the significant new contribution to the piano will come in 1921 with this brilliant "reduction" of the ballet Petrushka, plagued with difficulties, and which, despite the nearly one hundred years since its invention, is still today among the most "spectacular" works of the piano repertoire.

The three movements

The work is known for its enormous technical and musical difficulties. Almost without respite, they capture its three movements with a great display of polyrhythm, extensive and fast jumps, very fast scales, as well as glissandos and tremolos everywhere. Its parts are:

00:00  No 1 Danse russe (Russian Dance)

02:29  No 2 Chez Pétrouchka  (Petrushka's Room)

06:48  No 3 La semaine grasse (The Shrovetide Fair)

The rendition, dazzling, is by the brilliant pianist Yuja Wang.

Mozart, Horn Concerto 3 in E-flat major

The horn, or French horn, is one of the wind instruments that the child Mozart heard more than once at home, in Salzburg, when Leopold met with his friends to make chamber music. From then on he loved its timbre, which, together with the flute or the oboe, was more "pastoral" than the harpsichord or even the stringed instruments. And from that time, too, dates his closeness to Joseph Leutgeb, the most skilled horn player of his time, an essential guest in the evenings Leopold organized at his home in Getreidegasse.

The enterprising "horn man"
The four horn concertos composed by Mozart in Vienna between 1783 and 1791 are dedicated to Leutgeb. The horn player had left his position in the Salzburg court orchestra in 1771 to start a commercial "venture" in Vienna in his forties. It was a store specializing in cheese and related foodstuffs, but as the story goes, without giving up music altogether. The venture was partially financed by Leopold through a loan that Leutgeb was never able to repay, despite the continuous reminders of the debt that Mozart read in the letters he received from his father. The horn player had failed, irretrievably, but Wolfgang was there to support him and return him to music.

Wolfgang, the playful one

The friendship and affection professed were great. But this does not detract from the fact that, in the vein that characterized the Salzburg genius from childhood, he made healthy fun – if one can say so – of the unsuccessful entrepreneur. Surprising – to say the least – are the singular invectives in Italian that Mozart allowed himself to intersperse in the autograph pages of the four concertos. He called him a thousand names: seccatura di coglione, trillo di pecore, porco infame, are a few of them. Leutgeb did not take it badly. He understood that the brilliant son of his friend Leopold was having fun with him, not at his expense.

Horn Concerto No. 3 in E-flat major, K. 447
The four horn concertos (plus a quintet he composed later for horn and strings - K. 407) are masterpieces for the instrument, brilliant and solid, which enriched horn music, not very abundant at the time. The concerto K. 447 in E flat major is the third that Mozart composed for Leutgeb. Its solo parts abound in passages that are quite a challenge for the interpreter, even more so if one considers the precariousness of the instrument of the time.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
08:10  Romanza. Larghetto
12:54  Allegro

The performance is by the Czech instrumentalist Radek Baborák, accompanied by the RTVE Orchestra, under the baton of the Russian-born French conductor Jean Jacques Kantorow.

Anton Rubinstein, Piano Concerto No 4

The pianist who succeeded Liszt in the line of greatness was called Anton Grigorievich Rubinstein, a Russian bear with enormous hands who, with his luxuriant hair and broad forehead in the Beethoven style, dazzled the audience, especially the ladies, in the second half of the 19th century. At sixteen he had played for Liszt but the Hungarian master did not take him as a pupil. Perhaps their personalities clashed. Liszt is said to have dismissed him with good advice: "A talented man should reach his goal by his own efforts, without any help". No other brilliant pupil is known to have been rejected by the master.

Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894)

His career

Born in 1829 in a village northwest of Odessa, he made his debut at the age of nine. Soon his teacher took him to Paris where he dazzled as a child prodigy. But he was not the only one. As he would later recount in his autobiography, child prodigies were all the rage throughout Europe in the 1840s.

Later it was Berlin, then Vienna. In 1872-73 he made a professionally and financially successful tour of the United States. Ten years earlier he had participated in the founding of the St. Petersburg Conservatory, of which he was the first director (his younger brother, Nikolai, another piano virtuoso, founded the Moscow Conservatory in 1866).

The Legacy

At the end of his life, his enormous repertoire was weakened, but he still continued with his famous "historical recitals", in which during seven recitals he covered the entire history of Western music. Like every professional pianist of the 19th century, he was also a prolific composer. His legacy is extensive, although much of it has been forgotten. There are twenty operas, six symphonies, chamber music, and innumerable pieces for solo piano. Of his five concertos for piano and orchestra, only one survives, the Concerto in D minor, still hailed today, and an integral part of the standard repertoire, at least in Russia.

Concerto for Piano and Orchestra No. 4 in D minor, opus 70

Perhaps a masterpiece of the 19th-century repertoire, it was composed in 1864 and published two years later, together with an arrangement for two pianos. And it is not difficult to understand the success it enjoyed in its time (what is hard to understand is that it has lost it). His writing is colorful and at times dazzling. Of great melodic and harmonic appeal, it also displays a highly imaginative orchestration. 

Movements

The three typical ones of the period (although they were not so typical anymore - apart from the fact that the first movement is "somewhat moderate", and not overtly fast):

00:00  Moderato assai

11:31  Andante

22:18  Allegro

The rendition is by pianist Age Juurikas, from Estonia, accompanied by the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the Estonian maestro Neeme Järvi.

Beethoven, Symphony No. 1 in C major

Beethoven composed his first symphony at the age of 30, an age at which Mozart had composed most (around 33) of his 41 symphonies. Schubert himself, too, died at the age of 31, leaving a very respectable collection of nine symphonies. What sets the distances apart is that what the Bonn master was about to accomplish in the genre was monumental. In the First Symphony (also in the second) his writing will still be marked by the classical aesthetics of the end of the century, but with it comes a new air that will hatch four years later with the Third Symphony, called Eroica. From then on, there will be no parallel.

But there is no need to dramatize it either. It has often been insisted on the particular beginning of the Symphony in C major -giving it the character of revolutionary boldness, or premonition-, because it opens in a key other than the tonic. Indeed, the introductory adagio begins in F instead of C major (more precisely, the work opens with a seventh of C that immediately resolves in F). But this being a characteristic of Haydn's late works, we believe that the purpose of its application by Beethoven responds more to a sort of homage to the master, to his master, whom he revered, rather than to any other revolutionary motive.

Symphony No. 1 in C major, op 21

The work was composed in Vienna, between 1799-1800, and premiered at the Burgtheater on April 2, 1800. Beethoven had already written his first two piano concertos and a couple of cantatas, but the master is known more as a virtuoso pianist than as a composer. This, his first symphony, is the work that will point the way toward the composition of the great purely orchestral works.
And he does it in the midst of pain. The pain that arises when he learns that his growing deafness may not be cured. This is what he tells in a letter to his friend Karl Amenda in June 1800, two months after the premiere:

"...You must know that one of my most precious faculties, that of hearing, is become very defective; even while you were still with me I felt indications of this, though I said nothing; but it is now much worse. Whether I shall ever be cured remains yet to be seen; it is supposed to proceed from the state of my digestive organs, but I am almost entirely recovered in that respect. [...] I hope indeed that my hearing may improve, but I scarcely think so, for attacks of this kind are the most incurable of all. [...] I beg you will keep the fact of my deafness a profound secret, and not confide it to any human being. Write to me frequently; your letters, however short, console and cheer me; so I shall soon hope to hear from you."

Movements:
00        Adagio molto. Allegro con brio
10:33  Andante cantabile con moto.
17:07  Menuetto - Allegro molto e vivace
20:33  Finale - Adagio, allegro molto e vivace

The performance is by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Daniel Barenboim, from the Royal Albert Hall in London (BBC - Proms 2012).

Schoenberg, Three Piano pieces, Op 11

Over the course of a little more than twenty years, Arnold Schoenberg, creator of dodecaphonism, composed five sets of pieces for solo piano. These reflect his evolution from an initial break with the harmonic and melodic canons dominating for 300 years, through a return to a kind of neoclassicism, to finally openly address the most rigorous atonality in his last works for piano. Three Piano Pieces from Opus 11 is the first work of his piano production, composed in 1909 and premiered in Vienna the following year.

Schoenberg, musician, and painter

The period leading up to his creation was an embarrassing and unhappy one for the composer. As is well known, Arnold Schoenberg was also a painter (and an outstanding one at that), a vocation that ran almost parallel to that of a musician. In those years he met the Austrian painter Richard Gerstl, whom he took into his home to receive painting lessons from him. It was not a good idea. Gerstl and Mathilde, Arnold's wife, fell in love. Mathilde fled with her painter but returned soon after. Arnold caught his breath, but Gerstl could not stand the pain and killed himself.

The novel twist

Arnold Schoenberg (1874 - 1951)
Portrait by Richard Gerstl (1883 - 1908)

Mathilde returned in October 1908. In February of the following year, Schoenberg began the composition of the Three Pieces. And for the first time in music history, each sound or interval here showed a singular and independent value, free from the hierarchies of tonal discourse. Despite the novel twist, for Schoenberg, it was only the appropriate, obligatory path in the natural evolution of musical language. And so he pointed out in November 1909:

"I am striving to reach a goal that seems to be clear and I already feel the opposition that I will have to overcome.... It is not lack of inventiveness or technical ability, or ignorance of the demands of contemporary aesthetics that has led me to this.... [simply] I am following an inner compulsion that is stronger than education, stronger than my artistic training..."

Going a little further, it is said that Arnold looked forward to a time when grocers' boys would whistle serial music in their rounds. But, sadly for him, this never occurred.

Three Piano Pieces Opus 11 

00       No 1  Mässige (moderato)

03:20  No 2  Mässige (moderato)

09:47  No 3  Bewegte (movido)

The performance, brilliant, is by the Chinese pianist Di Wu.

Mozart, Piano Concerto No 17

Having settled in Vienna in 1781 and married the following year, Mozart had to support the family economy with his talent as a performer and composer. During those years he would compose one piano concerto after the other, the premiere of which was scheduled for a couple of weeks later. As soon as the composition was finished, an orchestra had to be hired, a theater had to be rented (or some similar venue) and the concert had to be sold by subscription. Once all this was organized to perfection, Wolfgang would sit at the piano and conduct on the day of the premiere. That was the rule in general, but there were exceptions.

Concertos on request

Concerto No. 17 in G major was requested by a pupil. Her parents hired the orchestra and the premiere took place at home, in an elegant suburb of Vienna, with the pupil at the piano and Mozart conducting, suitably rewarded. It was not the first time. Two months earlier, Concerto No. 14 had inaugurated this new form of "marketing" to the same interested parties.

On the occasion of the premiere of the Concerto in G major, Giovanni Paisiello was present, invited by Mozart to listen to his pupil and appreciate his progress. The evening ended with the master and pupil playing together four hands.

Concerto for piano and orchestra No. 17 in G major, K. 453

Thanks to the catalog of his works that Mozart began to keep in February 1784, we know for sure that the work was finished on April 12 of that year. In those days (exactly on May 27) Wolfgang bought a pet, with wings, a little bird, a starling.

The starling is said to be a songbird with a great ability to imitate, and it is reported that Mozart decided to buy it after finding that the little bird was able to sing the theme of the third movement. The starling did it wonderfully, except that he always sang a natural G as a G-sharp.

The critics of the time

The concerto is one of the few published during Mozart's lifetime. The critics praised the elegance of the Andante, and the beautiful modulations of the Allegretto, but warned about some somewhat dense passages that would make it difficult to be heard by the common public. These were, perhaps, the beginnings of the period of decline of the Viennese audience's taste for the maestro's piano concertos.

Movements

They are the traditional three ones, in the usual sequence, fast-slow-fast:

00:00   Allegro - Mozart's characteristic opening movement: the orchestra presents the thematic material that will later be taken up by the piano, bringing in new ideas and variations.

13:33   Andante  - Ten minutes of Mozartian elegance.

24:50   Allegretto / Finale: Presto - Theme and variations on the starling's song.

The rendition is by the brilliant Hungarian pianist Dezső Ránki, accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra, conducted by maestro Jeffrey Tate.