The ballet Coppelia, by French romantic author Léo Delibes, was the first work in the history of this musical genre to feature a mechanical doll that comes to life as part of the plot. It is a light and amusing work, despite the fact that its plot is based, albeit loosely, on a rather sinister tale by German composer and writer E.T.A. Hoffmann, Der Sandmann (The Sandman), which tells the story of a mysterious inventor, Doctor Coppelius, who has managed to build in his gloomy laboratory a life-size dancing doll, which he will baptize Coppelia. The illusion of reality caused by the scientist's creation captivates Frantz, a peasant who falls in love with the doll, abandoning his girlfriend and beloved in the real world, the beautiful Swanilde.
Léo Delibes At the time of its composition, Léo Delibes was 32 years old. He had studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he was a student of Adolphe Adams, author of another famous ballet, the peerless Giselle. After graduating, he worked as an organist, choir conductor, and piano accompanist, while also composing operettas without achieving particular brilliance. His fame and recognition came in 1870, with the premiere of Coppelia at the Paris Opera, on May 25 of that year, which was a resounding success.
Léo Delibes (1836 - 1891)
Coppelia and the war
The role of Swanilde was played on that occasion by a child prodigy, 16-year-old Giuseppina Bozzacchi, whose career as a dancer lasted only a few months, as she died of cholera the following year as a result of the epidemic unleashed after the siege of Paris, in the midst of the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. The war also prevented a more prolonged enjoyment of the ballet's success, since the performances of the work had to be interrupted. But after the end of the confrontation, Coppelia became one of the most performed and applauded ballets of those years.
On a par with Tchaikovsky
It still is, to this day. According to connoisseurs, the music of Coppelia is on a par with that of Tchaikovsky's ballets, for its soul, color, sensitivity, and abundance of nuances. Coppelia is a ballet in three acts, but the actual story unfolds only in the first and second. And as with the endings of the Russian composer's Nutcracker and Sleeping Beauty, the third is a set of divertimentos, intended here in Coppelia to celebrate the happy reunion of Swanilde and Frantz. One of the most celebrated pieces is the well-known Swanilde's Waltz.
Between 1786 and 1787 Mozart composed three rondos for piano. Written just past the age of thirty, they nevertheless correspond to a creative period of maturity, for only that can be said of an author who died at thirty-five. The works are simultaneous to the composition of two of his great successes in the opera genre: The Marriage of Figaro, of 1786, and Don Giovanni, of 1787, which certainly brought him economic benefits, but not enough. The publication of the rondos, short works for piano in which his pupils could venture, also had the purpose of restoring Wolfgang Amadeus' finances.
The Rondo Form
From baroque to classicism, the rondo musical form (derived from the French rondeau) maintained a continuous presence, first as part of baroque suites, and then in classicism as the last movement of the classical sonata (the third movement of Beethoven's Pathétique sonata is a clear example). But it was also developed by composers as an autonomous piece, as is the case of the one we are dealing with. Its structure is based on the repetition of a main theme that reappears and alternates with other subthemes, or variants, hence its name.
Rondo in D major, K. 485
Thanks to the catalog in which Mozart decided to record his works from 1784 onwards, we know with certainty that the rondo in D major, the first of the three mentioned, was completed on January 10, 1786. As was usual in those years, Mozart "borrowed" the main melody from a colleague, if not master, Johann Christian Bach, known in those years and today as "the Bach of London", whom Mozart met and visited twice when he was not yet ten years old. The melody is joyful and elegant. After some modifications that give it another thickness, it reappears at times in its original form. A typical and charming classical rondo. It could not be less if it came out of Mozart's mind.
The rendition is by the Russian master Vladimir Horowitz, in 1987 in Vienna, at age 84. (At the beginning, the maestro seems to practice a few chords to "warm up", or asks the audience to remain silent).
It took Wagner almost a decade to gestate the opera Lohengrin, his third masterpiece after The Flying Dutchman and Tannhäuser. His first encounter with the medieval German myth had been in 1841 but it took him five years to figure out how to bring it to the stage. Then, two years later, in 1848, he finished composing the score.
Lohengrin The story takes place in the tenth century and tells the vicissitudes of Elsa, unjustly accused of making her brother – then a child but a future duke – disappear. An enigmatic knight will arrive to protect her and eventually take her in marriage, as long as he never asks for her name. The knight, naturally, is Lohengrin, who like all knights of the Holy Grail, must remain anonymous while performing his good deeds. Lohengrin arrives in a boat, towed by a swan. In that same boat he will leave when Elsa, curious, asks for his name, thus ending the enchantment.
Richard Wagner (1813 - 1893)
The author in exile
Wagner was 35 years old when he finished the work. For some time he had begun to embrace political positions close to the left and a little more, going so far as to invite the renowned Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin to his home. Things did not go well, especially after the rebellion known as the Dresden Uprising in 1849, and as a result, Wagner had to go into exile. Before leaving Dresden, he asked his friend Franz Liszt (whose daughter Cosima would later marry Richard, 24 years older) to ensure that Lohengrin was performed in his absence. So Liszt did, conducting the premiere of the work in Weimar, in August 1850.
Prelude to Act III - The Wedding March
The opera, a romantic piece and the closest to the author's "Italian opera", with a script in German by Wagner himself – like all his masterpieces –, is set in three acts and lasts no more and no less than four hours. The famous wedding march, performed at every wedding in the Western world, also called the Bridal Chorus and known in the English-speaking world with the colloquial title of Here Comes the Bride, marks the beginning of Act III, when Elsa and her anonymous knight, called by the chorus, enter the bridal chamber.
The rendition is by the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra and Choirs, conducted by Janos Kovacs, at the Palace of Arts in Budapest.
In love affairs, not everything was Clara Schumann for Brahms, Following, a brief recount of the ladies he was interested in.
Agatha When he was 25 years old (two years after Schumann's death and Clara was alone and had to be supported) he was attracted by the beautiful voice of a singer, Agata von Siebold. He wrote some songs for her, they began to see each other frequently and their friends were already predicting an early courtship when the relationship ended in an unforeseen cooling off.
Julie Thirty years later, his assiduous presence at Clara Schumann's house naturally led him to fix his eyes on her daughter Julie, which annoyed Clara. But Julie married someone else and Brahms found nothing better than to write her a wedding song, which annoyed Clara again.
Elisabeth
A little more mature, in 1863, the thirty-year-old composer met a girl in Vienna who wanted to take lessons from him. Elisabeth Stockhausen was her name, and such was her disturbing beauty that Brahms could not thread a simple phrase in her presence. Much less could he give lessons to her. Therefore, he referred her to a colleague, Julius Epstein, who reportedly suffered the same drawbacks.
Ten years later Elisabeth had married, precisely to a composer, and was now called Elisabeth von Herzogenberg, and had become a remarkable pianist and composer.
Rhapsodies opus 79
Johannes Brahms, in 1879
To this remarkable pianist, Brahms would send a couple of short piano works composed during a stay in Pörtschach in the summer of 1879. As soon as he finished them, he sent the manuscript to Elisabeth, who in an encouraging letter by return mail recommended a new and fairer title for them: Rhapsodies should be called Rhapsodies and not simply Klavierstücke (piano pieces) as Brahms had titled them.
If it was difficult to talk to Elisabeth, it was even more difficult to contradict her, so despite not being fully convinced of the change the author did not disregard her advice, and so they were published the following year: Two Rhapsodies for piano, opus 79, dedicated, as could be foreseen, to Elisabeth von Herzogenberg.
Rhapsody No 2
Both pieces, in one movement, are composed in the form of a mini-sonata. Presented here is Rhapsody No. 2, in G minor, marked Molto passionato, ma non troppo allegro, Elisabeth's favorite, as she herself told Brahms.
The performance is by the German pianist Ragna Schirmer.
By 1838 Chopin had been settled in Paris for seven years and was already a celebrity among the Parisian aristocracy and the exiled Polish nobility. On February 25 of that year, he was invited to play at the Tuileries Palace for the delight of King Louis-Philippe and his court. Frédéric did not attend very willingly, as the king was not his devotee, but Louis-Philippe was delighted with the evening and repaid Chopin's effort with a personal gift. Three weeks later he appeared twice before a large audience, in Rouen and Paris. In Rouen, the performance of his Concerto in E minor earned him a laudatory commentary in the Gazette Musicale, which ends with the following words:
"... And if from now on it is still asked who is the greatest pianist in the world, greater than Thalberg and Liszt, those who heard you will answer to the whole world: Chopin!"
The year 1838 is the year of Chopin's departure for Majorca, the ill-fated trip he made with George Sand and her children, in October of that year. But before embarking on the voyage he would send for publication the four mazurkas of opus 33 and the three waltzes of opus 34. By that stage of his life, at the age of 28, Chopin had written, but not published, eight of his fourteen waltzes.
The Opus 34
The waltzes of opus 34, released by their publisher as Three Brilliant Waltzes, moved Robert Schumann to refer to them as "waltzes for souls, rather than for bodies", which today may seem a truism since Chopin's waltzes were never written to be danced, this being said with the utmost respect for the good-natured Schumann.
Waltz No. 3 in F major Opus 34 is made up of the Brilliant Waltz No. 1 in A flat major (the only "brilliant" one in our opinion), Waltz No. 2 in A minor (Chopin's favorite according to connoisseurs, and which the film The Pianist featured on its soundtrack), and the one presented here, Waltz No. 3 in F major, just over two minutes long, and nicknamed by some, somewhat syrupily, as the waltz "of the cat" because of the notes of the opening passage that could well illustrate the tricks that such a pet usually does for the amusement of his master.
The outstanding performance is by the Korean pianist Seong Jin Cho.
Franz Liszt's commitment to composing a cycle of twelve studies for piano took him a long time, about 26 years. It is true that he began quite young since his first approach dates from the time when he had as a pupil the Countess Carolyne de Saint-Cricq, his first and failed love. Liszt was then 15 years old, and decided to imitate the serial studies that were common in those days. In them, despite their simplicity, we can see the seed of his later production.
A second version A revision of the original twelve etudes dates from 1837. Liszt was at the height of his fame as a piano virtuoso, and as such, the pieces show a significant intensification of technical difficulties, to the extent that his colleague Robert Schumann noted that only a handful of pianists would be able to perform them in a satisfactory manner.
A third version The third and last version was published in Paris as Études d'Exécution Transcendante, in 1852, and dedicated to his teacher Carl Czerny. Perhaps moved by Schumann's perception, in this version the maestro decided to lighten the virtuosic demands a little, freeing the Études from the excessive pyrotechnics of the 1837 version, and adding, to his advantage, more musical values. This is the version that is performed today and, of course, the twelve pieces continue to be an enormous challenge for the performers.
Franz Liszt (1811 - 1886)
Étude No. 4 in D minor, "Mazeppa" Étude No. 4, one of the most demanding, is inspired by a poem by Victor Hugo, Mazeppa. The poem tells the story of Ivan Mazeppa, a Cossack nobleman who seduces a noblewoman, also noble, but Polish. As punishment, he is tied naked to a wild horse that takes him to Ukraine, where he miraculously arrives alive. After being freed by his Cossack peers, he is named their monarch, in recognition of such a feat.
The work, which attempts to musically reflect the horse's unbridled gallop and the ensuing suffering of the daring Mazeppa, adds to its technical demands an unusual fingering proposed by Liszt, with the pointed purpose of achieving either the required staccato or precise legato. Later, in 1851, Liszt will recreate the story again, with the same title, but this time as part of his cycle of thirteen tone poems, composed during his stay in Weimar.
The rendition is by the brilliant French pianist Emmanuel Despax.
Johann Sebastian Bach, the father of harmony, was primarily a church musician, who was aware that church music was primarily vocal music. That is why his oeuvre is punctuated by compositions to be sung, even when he was primarily concerned with the orchestra or solo instruments. From 1723 on, after being appointed Kantor in Leipzig, his dedication to ecclesiastical music became more intense, since his main responsibility was to compose the music to be sung in the divine offices.
The Passions Cantatas were Bach's daily bread and butter. Not so the Passions, conceived as long works on biblical themes, told the story of Christ's crucifixion according to the gospels and were sung only on Good Friday, in the Lutheran tradition. In the Passions, the historical characters and the evangelist (who leads the narration) are performed by soloists, and the flow of the story rests on recitatives, arias, and choral parts.
Passion according to St. Matthew
As far as we know, Bach would have composed at least five Passions, of which only two are preserved, the Passion according to St. John and the Passion according to St. Matthew. The latter, probably composed in 1729, was first performed on Good Friday of that year in the Thomasschule Church in Leipzig under Bach's baton.
The work, whose text is mainly based on chapters 26 and 27 of the Gospel of Matthew, is written for solo voices, a double orchestra, and two choirs, the latter intended to carry the voice of the believers, on the one hand, and those who ask for blood, on the other, each accompanied by its own orchestral group, hence the "double orchestra".
The oblivion, and Mendelssohn
Like almost all of Bach's works, the St. Matthew Passion fell into oblivion after its author's death in 1750. It was not until 1829 that it was heard again, thanks to a very young Felix Mendelssohn who brought it to the stage in Berlin in an abridged version. Its representation encouraged the interest in knowing the complete work of the father of modern music.
The great final chorus
In our days, Martin Scorsese's film Casino (1995) made an important contribution in favor of the ordinary public by including in the opening credits and in the final scene, the great chorus with which the play ends. It is the cry of the believers before the tomb of the dead Christ: Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder ("We prostrate ourselves weeping"), one of the most moving fragments of the work, and whose texts belong to the German poet and librettist Chrystian Friedrich Henrici, also known as Picander.
The performance is by the orchestra and choirs of the Belgian group Collegium Vocale Gent, conducted by Philippe Herreweghe, its founder.
Among the countless myths surrounding Mozart's death, the one that refers to Death itself visiting him to ask him to write his own Requiem stands out. The remaining half-truths, encouraged in our time by the film Amadeus, took shape again for a while: the poisoning by Salieri's hidden hand; the mass grave that turned out to be a shared grave; the absence of his wife Constance at the funeral, a custom of the time; the storm at the burial although that day was clear and bright; and finally, that he died bankrupt... the closest thing to the truth because at the time of his death Mozart had spent the last years robbing Peter to pay Paul.
The classical myth Now, the classical myth, that of the visit of Death, has some substance, for the mysterious emissary sent to the Mozart home by Count Franz von Walsegg could not hide his sinister appearance because of his cadaverous features. The count, an amateur musician who habitually solicited works from professional musicians to pass them off as his own, had been bereaved of his young wife of twenty years in February 1791. In mid-July, he commissioned his not very handsome secretary to ask Mozart to compose a Requiem Mass, taking care not to give any information about the principal. The person himself was also not identified.
The last days, working hard Around the same time, Mozart was commissioned to write an opera to celebrate the coronation of Leopold II as king of Bohemia. The work was called La Clemenza di Tito, whose premiere he conducted in Prague on September 6. At the end of that month, he completed the revisions of The Magic Flute, and in early October he did the same with the Clarinet Concerto. So it was only from the second week of October onwards that Mozart could focus on writing the Requiem, on which he worked until November 20, when he fell into bed and never got up again.
Franz Xaver Süsmayr (1766 - 1803)
The incomplete task Mozart passed away in the early morning of December 5, without having completed the assignment. But the commitment to the unknown client had to be fulfilled, so Constance sent the manuscripts to Joseph Eybler, Mozart's faithful friend, who returned them after recognizing his inability to continue with the genius's task. Finally, it was Franz Xaver Süsmayr, Mozart's disciple, who completed the work in March 1792. Surprisingly, Count von Walsegg only received the finished work in early December 1793, more than two years after he had commissioned it.
Requiem Mass
The Requiem, or requiem mass (rest mass), or mass for the dead, of the Catholic liturgy, is a votive mass, meaning a mass offered by vow on a specific occasion independent of the liturgical calendar. The texts, in Latin, of its sung parts are predetermined, and its development traditionally contemplates the following sections: Introitus / Kyrie Eleison / Graduale / Tract / Sequentia (which, due to the text's length taken from the 13th-century hymn Dies Irae, some composers divide into several movements, including the passage known as Lacrimosa) / Offertorium / Sanctus / Agnus dei (Lamb of God) / Communio.
Requiem for soloists, choir, and orchestra, in D minor, K. 626 Mozart's Requiem contains five sections, each topped by a fugue: 1 Introitus - Requiem / Kyrie 2 Sequentia (Dies Irae, Tuba mirum, Rex tremendae, Recordare, Confutatis, Lacrimosa) 3 Offertorium 4 Sanctus 5 Agnus Dei
Süsmayr's contribution What is Mozart's and what is Süssmayr's in the famous Requiem is still under discussion. But the autograph manuscript preserved in the Austrian National Library shows unquestionably the complete Introitus orchestrated by Mozart's hand, as well as detailed sketches of the Kyrie, and the Sequentia completed up to the first eight bars of the Lacrimosa, plus the Offertorium. Süsmayr himself claimed as his own authorship only the Sanctus and Agnus Dei.
Lacrimosa
In a rendition by the Berliner Philharmoniker conducted by Claudio Abbado, we present here the last movement of the Sequentia, Lacrimosa, which is only 3 minutes long (the complete work lasts about 55 minutes, depending on the version).
The son of a Ukrainian peasant whose life was changed thanks to Catherine II for favors received, the young Count Andréi Razumovsky, also a violinist, was proud to have studied Haydn's quartets with the composer himself. For this reason, he had sometimes played second violin in the Schuppanzigh Quartet that entertained the soirées at the home of Prince Lichnowsky, Beethoven's patron. In 1790, Razumovsky had been appointed ambassador of the Russian Empire in Austria and since then he had been living in Vienna, distant from peasantry.
Razumovsky's commission
On the occasion of these evenings, he met Beethoven, and in 1805 he ventured to ask the master to compose a series of string quartets, which, although he did not specify in number, must necessarily be inspired by Russian tunes or in imitation of them. In case Beethoven was not sufficiently familiar with Russian music, he gave him a good batch of folk songs.
But the master from Bonn paid little attention to the recommendations of the personage despite his high investiture and only included themes from Russian folklore in two of the three quartets -known today as "Razumovsky Quartets". He finally delivered them to the count at the end of 1806, after eight months of work – while simultaneously composing the Leonora Overture No. 3 and the Fourth Symphony –, thus adding three more works to the production in the genre started in 1801 with the Six Quartets of opus 18, dedicated to Prince Lichnowsky.
String Quartet Op 59 No 1 in F major
The first quartet of the trilogy includes in its final movement one of the Russian melodies provided by Razumovsky, for whom Beethoven did not spare titles when writing the dedication: "[...] Count Razumovsky, Privy Councillor of His Majesty the Emperor of all the Russias, Senator, Knight of the Orders of Saint Andrew and Alexander Nevski and Grand Cross First Class of the Order of Saint Wladimir". A few years later, the Count will add to these credentials the title of Prince.
Quartets for a future era
Premiered by the Schuppanzigh Quartet at the Razumovski Palace in Vienna, the Opus 59 string quartets suffered the same fate as his first symphonies in those years, provoking dismay and incomprehension among his contemporaries. It is said that Beethoven would have replied to his critics that they had not been written for them but for a future era.
Movements:
00 Allegro
11:30 Allegretto vivace
20:28 Adagio molto e mesto
33:14 Allegro (The Russian theme, atacca without pause)
The performance is by a remarkable String Quartet consisting of young students from the New England Conservatory, in Boston.
"Kreutzer Sonata" is the subtitle of the String Quartet No. 1 by Czech composer Leos Janacek. It is so named because it is inspired by Leo Tolstoy's novel of that name, which in turn owes its title to the homonymous sonata for violin and piano by Ludwig van Beethoven. Tolstoy's story summarizes the sad experience of a girl who, after a forced marriage to the one she does not love, seeks refuge in the arms of an evil lover, which will lead her to death. Janacek "musicalized" this story, with the intention of paying homage to the ladies who, during their lives, never found their true beloved.
Leos Janacek Born in Hukvaldy, Moravia, into a very modest family, Leos Janacek was a child prodigy who had to work hard to develop his talents. It is said that during his piano and organ studies in Prague in the 1970s, when he did not have his own piano, he decided to practice on a keyboard drawn on his desk. Despite all this, in 1875 he finished his studies brilliantly and with the best grades. The following year, he began to earn his living in Brno as a music teacher and choir conductor.
Leos Janacek (1854 - 1928)
Author of eight operas
Leos Janacek is an author hard to classify, because although musically formed in the nineteenth century his music appears as more typical of the twentieth century, perhaps because its evolution was slow until the time he came to consolidate a style of his own. The author of eight operas, Jenufa, from 1904, stands out among them, and among his orchestral compositions, the symphonic poem Taras Bulba, from 1918, deserves special mention.
String Quartet No. 1 - "Kreutzer Sonata"
At the end of his creative period, Janacek tackled chamber music by delivering two exceptional creations: the two string quartets, the first of them from 1923 (the second, from 1928) and which is presented here in a rendition by the Czech chamber ensemble Kubin Quartet, during a live performance in Ostrava, Czech Republic, in 2013. The work lasts around 16 minutes.
The musical expression a cappella denotes music sung without accompanying instruments. And it means "in the manner of the chapel" because it comes from the times when the music heard in churches was only sung. It is thus opposed to the cantata which, of course, is sung, but accompanied by instruments. An outstanding example of a cappella music is the Gregorian chant, typical of Catholic ritual, born around the ninth and tenth centuries.
The Swingle Singers In the 20th century, a vocal group born in 1962 from an idea of the American vocalist Ward Swingle went a little further. Not only did he do away with instruments, but he proposed to replace them with onomatopoeias and the vocal technique known as scat singing. They are the famous Swingle Singers born in France in 1962 and, after their dissolution, reborn in London in 1973, and still active today.
One of their most famous works was their version of the aria in G from Bach's Suite No. 3, a task that today would be child's play compared to what they were later able to do, with, for example, the vocal version of Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture or the no less famous Bolero by Maurice Ravel.
Ravel's Bolero, a cappella The group currently consists of seven members: two sopranos, a contralto, two tenors, a baritone and a bass. Although they may occasionally be supported by a double bass and some percussion, the version of the Bolero presented here is entirely a cappella. Only seven people have been able to create this astonishing eight-minute version of Ravel's popular piece (the original version lasts seventeen, approx.).
And if anyone has ever wondered what exactly is the rhythmic – or melodic – pattern known as ostinato, just pay attention to the basses that are heard neatly at the beginning of the piece, and which, as the ostinato that it is, will be maintained without variation or respite until the end.
Chopin, the piano teacher While living in Paris from 1831 until his death in 1849, Chopin's major income came from his private lessons. Since the renowned professor Kalkbrenner (from whom he refused to take lessons) charged 25 francs an hour, Chopin opted for more modest fees, and until before becoming intimate with George Sand in 1838 (who suggested 30), the Polish master charged only 20. Even so, his annual income during his early years in Paris was around twelve thousand francs on average, to which he would later add a pittance from the sale of his music to his publishers (17,000 francs in all for his lifetime's work) plus a couple of concerts that occasionally left a profit.
The pupils His students were mostly ladies, a good number of them amateurs, although he also had more talented pupils. Countesses, baronesses, and aristocratic girls would come to the house where the master was living (he lived in nine homes in Paris). Chopin's house had to be furnished in such a way that it did not clash with the ancestry of his pupils. All the more reason why he himself had to dress like a dandy to match the occasion. A few brief words to a friend give us an account of his relative well-being and his need for personal grooming:
"Today I have five lessons to give, do you think I am making a fortune? Don't be fooled, the cabriolet and the white gloves cost more than what I earn... but it wouldn't be in good taste to lack them".
The Nocturnes from Opus 27 It seems that the Countess of Appony, the wife of the Austrian ambassador, was not among his pupils, but Chopin was a frequent guest in her salons. In retribution for so much hospitality, we suppose, the two nocturnes of Opus 27, written in 1836 and published in Paris in 1837, are dedicated to her. They belong to the third published series of a total of twenty-one nocturnes, after the first three of opus 9 and the three of opus 15. From opus 27 onwards, Chopin will send the nocturnes for publication in groups of only two.
Nocturne Opus 27 No 1, in C sharp minor The first nocturne of the series is considered by scholars to be the pearl of the collection, "the most fervent dream Chopin ever entrusted to the piano" (although the second, Opus 27 No. 2 is second to none). Structured in ABA form with a coda, the singing rests on an arpeggiated left hand, common to most nocturnes, and which is one of the most remarkable innovations Chopin's piano ever gave to the world. The overtly passionate middle section adds the necessary contrast.
The outstanding performance is by the brilliant Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa.
Born in St. Petersburg in 1865 into a well-to-do family, Alexander Konstantinovich Glazunov began studying piano at the age of nine and decided to try his hand at composition at eleven. He chose the right path, because soon after he had finished his First Symphony, which after a year had its premiere under the baton of Mili Balakirev. The reception was so warm that the young musician found himself, overnight, becoming a distinguished Russian composer. He was 16 years old. Not long after, Liszt would conduct his opera prima in Weimar.
The Conservatory and the exile A disciple of Rimsky-Korsakov, by the end of the century, he had already made a name for himself before age 35. A professor of composition at the St. Petersburg Conservatory, he then took over its leadership in 1905, a position in which he would remain until 1928, when, taking advantage of an invitation to Vienna to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Schubert's death, he left Russia, never to return. Glazunov did not feel comfortable at the head of this school, he disagreed that music could be a vehicle for propaganda.
Alexander Glazunov (1865 - 1936)
An excessively formal symphonism And just as Soviet Russia had branded him a "bourgeois artist" and accused him of not being "Russian" enough, Western Europe began to label his music as excessively "Europeanized". Finally, the composer, in his sixties, no longer seemed to please anyone. Moreover, based in Paris, his eight symphonies could not avoid the competition of those of Brahms, Bruckner, or Mahler. In his later years, Glazunov, like Rachmaninoff (whose First Symphony Glazunov was rumored to have premiered being a little drunk), was openly considered an "old-fashioned" composer.
Concerto for violin and orchestra in A minor, opus 82 Glazunov had experienced his finest hour twenty years earlier, when he was appointed director of the Conservatory. From that time dates what is perhaps his most enduring work, the Concerto for violin and orchestra in A minor. Composed in 1904, it had its premiere in St. Petersburg on February 15, 1905 (three weeks after the outbreak of the revolutionary events of that year).
Movements
Despite the lack of sections or parts clearly identified by the author, it is customary to consider that the work consists of three movements. Other views point to four. Or a single movement in sonata form, if it is agreed that the "second" movement is part, strangely, of the "first" —a Glazunov oddity, attached to this elegant and romantic work.
00 Moderato
04:26 Andante sostenuto
14:50 Allegro
The performance is by violinist Julia Fisher, accompanied by the Bamber Symphony, under the baton of Czech conductor Jakub Hrůša.
Although he enjoyed wide recognition during his lifetime as a composer of operas and music for the stage, the German composer Christoph Willibald Gluck, born in Erasbach in 1714, is today practically unknown to the "general public". His works are rarely performed, although he is recognized as the great reformer of the operatic genre, advocating and establishing a new balance between music and drama. Away from the Italian model, prodigal in fiorituras and chilling warbles, Gluck abolished forever the strict distinction between recitatives and arias, endowing the music with the ability to maintain an uninterrupted flow of dramatic action.
The first elements of reform were manifested in his work Orpheus and Eurydice, of 1762, although it was only completed when the work was translated into French in 1774 (dedicated, incidentally, to Marie Antoinette), with the replacement of the castrato by a tenor in the role of Orpheus, among other important modifications.
As was customary for the time – and particularly for Gluck – the work draws on Greek mythology, recreating the myth of Orpheus, which, in a nutshell, goes as follows, although, to please the Viennese public, in its time the work featured a happy ending.
The myth of Orpheus
Christoph W. Gluck (1714 - 1787)
The shepherd Orpheus, from Thrace, played the lyre in a sublime way, so it was easy for him to enchant with his music his beloved Eurydice who, to Orpheus' misfortune, would soon die from the bite of a snake. Tormented by grief, the shepherd, son of a muse and a god, managed to reach Hades, the place of the dead, to which end he had to enchant with his music the canine Cerberus, the three-headed dog in charge of guarding the gates of the world of shadows. Once inside, he humbly asked the king and queen of the dead to allow him to return with Eurydice to the world of the living.
The tragedy As he accompanied the request with the singing of his lyre, he quickly obtained consent, but on one condition: he would return to the world of light, holding Eurydice by the hand, but never turning his head back. So he did, until he was seized with the doubt that he had been deceived. And then he turned around, only to see Eurydice disappear before his eyes, her arms outstretched.
Dance of the Blessed Spirits
In three acts, the opera had its premiere at the Burgtheater in Vienna on October 5, 1762, on the occasion of Emperor Franz I's holy day. A short ballet accompanying the second scene of Act II in the original version became a dance in the French version of 1774, in four movements, containing a beautiful flute solo, the Dance of the Blessed Spirits, presented here in an orchestral version (audio only) by the Budapest Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Andras Korodi.
When in 1891 the University of Cambridge decided to award Antonin Dvorak an honorary doctorate in music, the composer sent a Symphony composed in Vysoka, his summer residence, between August and November 1889. Symphony No. 8 was published by an English publisher due to disagreements with his usual publisher, who was betting on shorter works that, in his opinion, were more profitable. Its premiere took place on February 2, 1890, in Prague, conducted by the author. A year later he conducted it in London, on the occasion of receiving his doctorate.
Villa Vysoka In 1880, when he was under forty years old, the Czech composer was already an internationally recognized musician, so he would travel through Europe with increasing frequency, to stage and conduct his works. However, what really pleased him was to remain in his homeland, working on his compositions, hopefully in a serene and motivating environment.
In 1877, his wife Anna's older sister married a count who enjoyed the possession of a beautiful villa 50 km from Prague, where a small mansion stood in the middle of a forest. Dvorak was amazed with the place, the first time he saw it, in the ocassion of the marriage. He received a new invitation in 1880 and then, for three more summers, Dvorak stayed with his wife in a smaller building in the proximity of the mansion.
Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)
A second home
The villa was named Vysoka and it would play an important role in the composer's personal and professional life. Thanks to the income from tours and the publication of his works, Dvorak was able to buy a portion of the villa from his relative, the Count. He settled there in a house that would become his second home, to rest from touring and Prague. There he would produce an important number of works, among which stand out his opera Rusalka, the second series of the Slavonic Dances, and Symphonies No. 7 and No. 8.
Symphony No. 8 in G major, opus 88 With his Eighth Symphony, the composer once again reveals his passion for Slavic folk music. In conjunction with a vigorous national language, the work presents varied moods, ranging from pastoral images, dances, and marches to highly dramatic moments. It adheres to the "classical" structure of the symphony, with four movements:
00:00 Allegro con brio
10:42 Adagio
22:10 Allegretto grazioso - Molto vivace
28:00 Allegro ma non troppo
The performance is by the Radio Frankfurt Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Manfred Honeck.
In replacement of Christoph Gluck, the court composer who had died the previous year, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was finally given in 1788 what he and his father had yearned for so long: a full-time position at the imperial court in Vienna. But the salary was not much, although it was enough to pay the rent and, most importantly, it was a regular income. Mozart was already 32 years old and had to support a house, wife, and children. In order to alleviate the situation, the family decided to look for a hopefully cheaper residence, moving to the suburbs of Vienna.
Three symphonies in eight weeks In the new home, and in the incredible span of eight weeks, Mozart wrote one after the other his last three symphonies, No 39 in E-flat, No 40 in G minor and, perhaps his greatest creation in the genre, Symphony No 41 in C major, also called "Jupiter". Whether something triggered the creation of this triptych, we do not know. Mozart composed his symphonies at very irregular intervals and it is very likely that the unusual devotion put into these last three symphonies was due, on the one hand, to the fact that he had a little more time because he had almost no students at that time. On the other hand, his performances in concerts for his own benefit no longer aroused the popular enthusiasm of a few years before. To make matters worse, it is quite possible that Mozart never heard them.
"Jupiter", the nickname For a couple of years Mozart had been keeping track of the start and completion dates of his works, so we know precisely that Symphony No. 41 in C major was completed on August 10, 1788. Its nickname Jupiter is somewhat more imprecise, but it is likely due to the violinist and music impresario Johann P. Salomon (who years before had taken Haydn on tour to London) to symbolize the majesty of the work with the name of the maximum divinity of Roman mythology.
Movements Regarded as a paradigm of the classical symphonic form, the work is in four movements, the first and last in fast tempo, the second slower, and the third, the usual minuet with trio. The work lasts about 49 minutes.
00Allegro vivace - With impressive pomp, it manages to create a ceremonial atmosphere.
13:28Andante cantabile - Serene, loose movement in sonata form. A sarabande in the style of JS Bach's French suites.
23:43Menuetto (allegretto) - A refined study of contrasts, setting the mood for the finale.
29:22Molto allegro - Lavish in contrapuntal techniques, including fugato (a fugue inserted in the middle of another form), stretto (overlapping entries) and canon. The coda includes a fugato treatment of the five main themes, which are heard simultaneously.
The performance is by Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, conducted by maestro Lorin Maazel.
In 1793, at the age of 23, Beethoven left Bonn to settle definitively in Vienna with the desire to expand his knowledge under the guidance of the most conspicuous masters of the time. Among them stood out Joseph Haydn who, passing through Bonn, had offered to accept the young genius as a pupil in the capital of the empire if he ever happened to be there.
Haydn's pupil But the Esterházy musician and Beethoven did not get along. Their temperaments were completely opposite. The old master acknowledged that the young Beethoven had genius, but suggested that perhaps he could do better with an education of the spirit than a musical one. On hearing his first works, he would have said to him:
"You are very talented, and will progress further in the future. You possess great inspiration and will never sacrifice a beautiful thought to a tyrannical rule, which seems reasonable to me; but you will sacrifice rules to your fantasy, for it seems to me that you are a man who has several heads, several hearts, several souls. I believe that one will always discover in your works something unexpected, unusual, somber, because you yourself are a little somber and strange, and the musician's style always reveals the man."
A young Beethoven, in 1803
Beethoven, a pupil of Socrates and Jesus Christ
A cold, if sharp analysis of Beethoven's personality. In the face of Haydn's simplicity, Beethoven's passionate and sometimes violent temperament was bound to clash. The young composer was then forced to look for other teachers. He had several (Salieri, among them), although later, when asked from what sources he had drawn, he used to answer, a little proudly: "I am a pupil of Socrates and Jesus Christ".
Sonata Opus 2 No 1
However, the first three piano sonatas, grouped in Opus 2, are dedicated to the first teacher he had in Vienna, Joseph Haydn. And with them, the surprising cycle of the 32 piano sonatas that he would write during his lifetime is inaugurated.
Published in 1796, Sonata No. 1 of Opus 2, in F minor, was probably composed years earlier, while the master was still in Bonn. It is clearly an early piece, influenced – and somewhat more – by Mozart and Haydn. It is his first piano sonata.
Movements
In the complete cycle of his 32 sonatas, Beethoven did not always follow the Vivaldian three-movement structure. There are those with four movements (12 sonatas), three (13) and with two (7). It is therefore not surprising that this first sonata is in four movements:
00Allegro - The opening theme is apparently taken from the finale of Mozart's Symphony No. 40.
04:18Adagio - The first theme is derived from the slow movement of a quartet, by Beethoven himself.
09:54Menuetto: Allegretto - This is the movement that Beethoven has added to the Vivaldian structure, a minuet marked allegretto.
13:41Prestissimo - With a very energetic initial theme, it clearly marks the movement as the most "Beethovenian" of all.
The rendition is by Daniel Barenboim, during his performance of the complete Beethoven sonatas at the Berlin Staatsoper in June and July 2006.
One year before he was assassinated by a bomb thrown at his feet, Tsar Alexander II decided to celebrate his twenty-five years at the head of the Russian Empire with a great event. For this purpose, several Russian musicians were summoned to provide the music for several short dramas that were to be staged in front of the Tsar and his court. Apparently, the only musician who responded to the summons was the composer and scientist Alexander Borodin, a musician member of The Five Group and holder of the chair of chemistry at the Russian Medical and Surgical Academy. The composer joined the celebrations with a short symphonic poem entitled "In Central Asia".
An immediate success The great event envisaged by the Tsar never took place (the political situation was not the best, as can be inferred). But Borodin's work, first performed in St. Petersburg in April 1880 under the baton of Rimsky-Korsakov, became famous in its own right almost immediately. It was applauded in Russia and also in the rest of Europe, where it became known under the title " In the Steppes of Central Asia ".
The symphonic work is dedicated "with veneration" to the master of the symphonic poem, Franz Liszt, whom Borodin had met shortly before, in Weimar, to where he departed during a professional visit to Jena in his capacity as a man of science.
Alexander Borodin (1833 - 1887)
Crossing the steppes Openly programmatic, the work illustrates the crossing of the steppes of Central Asia by a caravan of Asian merchants escorted by Russian soldiers, a frequent image, we imagine, after the eastward expansion of the Russian Empire by the assassinated Tsar. Nothing could be more appropriate than Borodin's own words to describe the atmosphere evoked by the score, a scenario marked by an idyllic collaboration between conquerors and conquered —a politically correct review if it was meant to pay homage to the Tsar:
"In the silence of the monotonous steppes of Central Asia is heard the unfamiliar sound of a peaceful Russian song. From the distance, we hear the approach of horses and camels and the bizarre and melancholy notes of an oriental melody. A caravan approaches, escorted by Russian soldiers, and continues safely on its way through the immense desert. It disappears slowly. The notes of the Russian and Asiatic melodies join in a common harmony, which dies away as the caravan disappears in the distance."
The work lasts less than eight minutes. The performance is by the Laurel Wind Orchestra conducted by Yoo Sejong.
Interestingly, to become the most successful and famous composer of Spanish music in the 20th century, Manuel de Falla had to leave Spain to study in Paris. After trying in vain to stage in Madrid his first opera, La vida breve, Falla took the opportunity a mime troupe offered him as an accompanying pianist to go on tour with them and visit some European cities, Paris included, of course. And Falla settled there, at the end of the tour. It was 1907, and the author was 31 years old.
Paris, before the war The years before the First War were the last years of the Belle Époque, and Paris still allowed itself to enjoy an intense musical life. Isaac Albéniz was living there, working busily on his Iberia Suite. Debussy was doing the same with his triptych Images, and Ravel was busy composing the Spanish Rhapsody. Falla knew all of them, Paul Dukas included, who offered to guide him in his orchestration studies; a commendable attitude, although in private he called him le petit Espagnol tout noir, with all affection, we imagine.
On the way back
But financially, the little Spaniard dressed all in black had a hard time. He could barely survive a frugal existence based on lessons, various accompaniments, and translations. However, his stay in Paris prepared him for his transformation into the mature composer he was to become on his return to Madrid in 1914. He had under his arm the drafts of a set of "nocturnes" for solo piano, which he would finally complete as a work for piano and orchestra, as suggested by his fellow countryman, the pianist Ricardo Viñes, and which he would call Noches en los Jardines de España (Nights in the Gardens of Spain).
De Falla in Paris, 1910 (1876 - 1946)
The work
Conceived in 1909 as a nocturnal composition, the symphonic work was completed a year after his return to Madrid, in 1915. Dedicated to Ricardo Viñes, it was first performed at the Teatro Real in Madrid on April 9, 1916. The premiere was attended by the pianist Arthur Rubinstein, who later confessed to having fallen in love with the piece, which he soon incorporated into his repertoire, seduced by this nostalgic triptych for piano and orchestra, considered one of the composer's works closest to Impressionism, as well as one of his most brilliant.
Movements
The work is in three movements or sections, with the second and third joined without pause.
00:00 En el Generalife
10:52 Danza Lejana
16:00 En los jardines de la Sierra de Córdoba
The performance is by Daniel Barenboim, accompanied by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Plácido Domingo.
With the disappearance of the princes, church lords, and various patrons who had previously ensured their subsistence, Romantic musicians had to fend for themselves in the XIX century, which had a true impact on the universe of genres and compositions of the new era. The salon of the rising bourgeoisie and decadent aristocracy will take an important turn in the character of its social activities, adding to the political reflection and literary novelties, an increasing interest in art and music. The piano, in addition to being a status symbol, became a guest of honor in the salons, a sign of good taste. And for this instrument, composers would feel called upon to write short pieces for the enjoyment and pleasure of the new class.
Thus, nocturnes, preludes, impromptus, and musical moments flooded the musical universe of the early 19th century. Sometimes their publication would generate revenues that, for this new musician, deprived of patronage, could get him out of a financial quagmire, even though, as is obvious, the biggest slice remained in the hands of the publisher. It was in this way that Franz Schubert managed, for example, to get some breathing space with the Impromptus Opus 90, in 1827.
Musical Moments
The following year, suffering from illness but still in high spirits, Schubert sent to his publisher, for similar purposes, a series of six short pieces to be published as a set, though without indicating how the work was to be titled. Four of them were of recent creation; the third and last, from 1823 and 1824, respectively.
Franz Schubert (1797 - 1828) by W.A. Rieder, 1825
The "French" title The Viennese editor, following the tradition that considered it glamorous to speak and write in French, titled them pretentiously in that language, ascribing them to the genre "musical moments". But where it should have said "Moments," he wrote "momens", and where it should have said "Musicaux" he wrote "musicals". And so they were published, in July 1828, when Schubert was not in a position to ask for corrections of any kind, for by then the little master was only fighting for his life, which would finally end in November of that year.
Musical Moment No. 3 in F minor - 5 virtuosos Composed in 1823, as already noted, it has become the most popular of the series, perhaps because of the display of a certain oriental flavor that encouraged the publisher to add the subtitle "Air Russe", this time correctly written.
Marked allegro moderato, it is presented here in a version by five piano masters, since it lasts less than two minutes. The masters are Seong Jin Cho, Yulianna Avdeeva, Vladimir Horowitz, Natasha Stojanovska, and Kit Armstrong.
In 1871, a 31-year-old Tchaikovsky had been teaching harmony for five years at the Moscow branch of the Russian Musical Society, which would later become the Moscow Conservatory. He had come to that position following an invitation extended by his friend Nicholas Rubinstein, who at the time was serving as director of the school. But the salary was rather meager, and Tchaikovsky was forced to write articles of music criticism to increase his income, thus taking precious time away from composition.
The Quartet No. 1 - Premiere
In these circumstances, five years before the appearance on the scene of Madame von Meck and the six thousand rubles a year that came with her, the young master resolved to stage a concert with his own works and for his own benefit, which took place in March 1871. The concert included the contribution of his friend Rubinstein who accompanied some ladies of the nobility on the piano in a couple of songs, and ended in style with the First Quartet for Strings written by Tchaikovsky, composed just a month before, and which on the occasion was performed by professors of the Russian Musical Society.
Tolstoy and the Andante
The evening was a success, even financially, and constituted an important first step in the composer's career. During the rest of his life, Tchaikovsky would write only two other string quartets, and although according to connoisseurs the third is the best of them all, none is as popular as this one, No. 1, due, especially to its famous second movement, Andante. According the maestro himself recounts in his Diary, it once made Leo Tolstoy weep:
"I believe that never, in all my existence as a musician, have I ever felt so flattered and moved as the moment when Tolstoy, seated next to me, began to sob on hearing my First Quartet."
Quartet No. 1 in D major, opus 11 - Andante cantabile It is in the usual four movements. Presented here is the second, Andante cantabile, in a performance by the Russian Borodin Quartet. It opens with a simple folk melody that Tchaikovsky would have once heard sung by a carpenter. The second theme is original, and is introduced by the first violin, at 2:29. Numerous arrangements for string orchestra and various other instrumental combinations have contributed to the movement's popularity.
