Chopin, Variations on a theme by Mozart - "Là ci darem la mano"

 
" Hats off gentlemen: a genius! Listening to these variations, I imagined that unknown eyes were opening before me [...] At various moments ... I thought I could perceive Mozart's Là ci darem through a hundred linked chords... Don Juan was flying before me in his white cloak."

The words are Robert Schumann's. He wrote them in 1831 after hearing in Leipzig the variations that a young musician, whom he did not know and whose name was Chopin, had composed on Mozart's duet, Là ci darem la mano, from the first act of the opera Don Giovanni.

From then on, there were countless occasions when Robert Schumann enthusiastically praised Chopin's compositions and his ability to make prodigious sounds emerge from the piano. But the young Polish musician, only three months older than Schumann (both, 21 years), never reciprocated the enthusiasm of his German admirer. And the ardent words already transcribed seemed to him exaggerated, even for laughter:

“I received a few days ago a ten-page review from a German in Kassel who is full of enthusiasm for [the variations]. After a long-winded preface, he proceeds to analyze them bar by bar, explaining that they are not ordinary variations but a fantastic tableau. In the second variation he says that Don Giovanni runs around with Leporello; in the third he kisses Zerlina while Massetto’s rage is pictured in the left hand—and in the fifth bar of the Adagio he declares that Don Giovanni kisses Zerlina on the D-flat…I could die of laughing at this German’s imagination.”

Ah, well. Chopin was never known for patronizing his fellow musicians. And he always viewed praise with disdain. On the other hand, it must also be clearly established that he was never proud to express an opinion about his own music. It is not surprising then that so much praise seemed unconscionable to him.

The Variations

In addition to his two concertos, Chopin included the orchestra in only three of his compositions. And in these variations – the composer's first work for piano and orchestra, written at the age of 17 – the contribution of the orchestral ensemble is precarious, almost limited to providing a "refrain" between variation and variation. For the same reason, the composer will later dispense with the orchestral accompaniment by presenting the work as a piece for solo piano.

Dedicated to his friend Titus Woyciechowski, it was successfully premiered in Vienna in August 1829 with Chopin at the piano, during his first visit, from July to August of that year.

Sections:
00:00  Introduction: Largo / 04:55  Theme: Allegretto / 06:29  Variation 1 / 07:30  Variation 2 / 08:33  Variation 3 / 10:03  Variation 4 / 10:49  Variation 5 / 11:39  Adagio / 14:27  Coda: Alla polacca.

The version is by eighteen-year-old South Korean pianist Yunchan Lim, the youngest person to win a gold medal at the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition.

Mozart, "Là ci darem la mano", duettino

We know that the premiere of Don Giovanni, in Prague, in October 1787, was a success with the public and critics. The same did not happen in Vienna, the following year, although Mozart introduced some changes to please the Viennese spirit. It was not enough. Apparently, the more conservative Viennese of the time did not see favorably that the work ended with the protagonist being punished by death, however libertine he might be. After all, Don Juan was a nobleman, and the storming of the Bastille was a year and a little more away...

Duetinno "Là ci darem la mano"
For the Viennese premiere, Mozart added, removed, and modified arias, in accordance with the singers' specific abilities in the piazza. But one duet remained untouched.
It is the duet (rather, duettino) Là ci darem la mano, one of Mozart's most famous baritone and soprano (or mezzo) duets, sung in the first of the opera's two acts, and commissioned for Don Giovanni and Zerlina, the latter the fiancée of Masetto, a peasant.

"There we will hold hands."
Don Giovanni has fallen in love with Zerlina, as soon as he sees her. And he manages to drive Masetto away, after offering the couple his castle to celebrate the wedding there. With Masetto out of the picture, Don Giovanni begins the display of his amatory arts, assuring Zerlina that "there [in the castle] we will hold hands", and then he will hear from her, a yes. The seducer advances in his conquest at a steady pace. Zerlina is about to be captivated when Doña Elvira enters the scene, who will snatch her from the arms of the dissolute Giovanni, whom she knows well.

Duettino and not duet the piece is marked. And that is because it is not much of a duet if by duet we mean simultaneous singing. Indeed, the two voices only come together at the end, after Zerlina intones Andiam...! (5:15). Previously, Giovanni has intoned his text to seduce, Zerlina hers, showing her confusion.

Variations and fantasies

The piece, which does not exceed four minutes in length, encouraged a good number of composers to write variations or fantasies on it, commissioned to different instruments. There are variations for piano, clarinet, oboe, English horn, guitar... The most popular is Chopin's opus 2, from 1827, in its versions for solo piano and orchestrated. Beethoven, Berlioz, and Liszt, are other renowned authors who were also captivated by Mozart's duettino.

The performance is by American baritone Rodney Gilfry and Romanian mezzo soprano Liliana Nikiteanu. The video includes the prolegomena of Don Juan's seduction and Zerlina's confusion. Please excuse the abrupt ending.

Paisiello, Il Barbiere di Siviglia - Cavatina

On February 16, 1816, four months before his death, followers and supporters of Giovanni Paisiello decided to attend the premiere of Rossini's The Barber of Seville with the purpose of creating riots and causing the opera to fail. They were angry with Rossini. More than thirty years ago Paisiello had premiered in St. Petersburg an opera based on Beaumarchais' famous comedy, with great success, the first of all previous adaptations. The work toured Europe with similar acclaim. Its title was: Il Barbiere di Siviglia, ovvero La Precauzione inutile.

So when his supporters saw in Rome the announcement of a work entitled Almaviva o sia La inutile precauzione with music by Gioacchino Rossini they had reason to be outraged. They felt that Maestro Rossini had not worn himself out in search of a novel topic but had merely worked comfortably on a tried-and-true work. That's why they were angry. And they got their way, Rossini's premiere turned out to be a failure.

Giovanni Paisiello
(1740 - 1816)

Paisiello versus Rossini
This was not the case with the following performances. But if Rossini's work is the most performed opera to this day, it is no less true that in its time it had to struggle arduously with Paisiello's work. Despite all the time that had elapsed since its premiere in September 1782, Paisiello's Il Barbiere di Siviglia was more popular than Rossini's work for a significant period of time. Rossini would eventually surpass it, but that would not happen until the middle of the 19th century. Paisiello's opera will disappear from the stage, but not completely from the world music scene.

Cavatina "Saper bramate"
In the first act, the Count of Almaviva sings a serenade to Rosina, introducing himself to her as Lindoro, a poor student. The cavatina, which begins with the words Se il mio nome saper bramate (something like "If my name you long to know"), is one of the surviving arias from Paisiello's opera. Moreover, the piece took on a new air since the insightful Stanley Kubrick included it in the soundtrack of Barry Lindon, in an instrumental version, to accompany the scene shown in the image that heads this article: the Lindon family makes music while the father, disengaged from home, goes around town visiting gambling houses.

The video has been created with scenes from the film.

Chopin, Waltz Opus 70 No 2

With the city occupied by the Russians, the cultural life of Warsaw around 1830 did not compare to that of Vienna or Paris, but it was not so poor either. At the theater, one could attend performances of Racine, Moliére, or Shakespeare. In music, Chopin did not miss any of the ten performances Paganini gave there.
He also listened to his colleagues Hummel, Rossini, and some ladies, such as the Polish pianist Maria Szymanowska, and his French colleague Anne Caroline de Belleville, only two years his senior, on tour in Warsaw. Of course, all this was before the November uprising, which inspired Chopin's "Revolutionary" Etude.

Anne Caroline de Belleville had been a talented pupil of Czerny's and had attracted the attention of Beethoven. She was also compared with Clara Wieck, favourably. In a letter to a friend, Chopin speaks of her in very good terms: "Here is also a certain Mlle Belleville, French, who plays the piano very well, with much grace and elegance". We know that Chopin was not at all fond of complimenting colleagues, so we must assume that Mlle Belleville, called Ninette in private, must have been a remarkable performer.

Anne Caroline de Belleville
French pianist (1808 - 1880)

A little waltz
Ten years after writing these words, having already become in Paris the famous pianist and composer we admire today, Chopin sent Ninette a "little waltz", dedicated to her and for her own exclusive pleasure, as he did not wish to see it published. And so he tells her:

"As for the little waltz I had the pleasure of writing for you, I beg you to keep it. I do not wish it to be published. But I would like to hear it played by you, dear lady, and to attend one of your elegant réunions, in which you wonderfully perform such great masters as Mozart, Beethoven and Hummel, who were the masters of us all. The adagio by Hummel which I heard you play a few years ago in Paris, at the house of Mr. Erard, still resounds in my ears; and I assure you that in spite of the great concerts offered here, there is little piano music that can make me forget the pleasure of having listened to you that evening."

Waltz Opus 70 No 2

The little waltz, dated 1842, was finally published, in 1855, six years after the death of its author. It is one of the three waltzes of opus 70, and one of the six (of the total of fourteen) waltzes published posthumously. Given its incomparable and simple beauty, it is surprising that Chopin did not want to see it published. But... he also wanted to throw his Fantasie Impromptu on the bonfire.

The performance is by eight-year-old Anne-Laure Bride-Lanoë, in a 2010 performance at the Salle Pleyel, Paris.

Mozart, "The Abduction from the Seraglio", Overture

After attending the successful premiere of his opera Idomeneo, Re di Creta in Munich, Mozart had to move to Vienna in March 1781, following his patron Colloredo, to be present at the festivities of Joseph II of Habsburg's accession to the throne as Austrian emperor.
In May, the altercation with Colloredo occurred, which ended with Mozart's resignation. The twenty-five-year-old composer would then settle in Vienna to develop a career as a freelance musician. In July, he received an "orientalizing" libretto, for which he would write the music.

The "original" libretto
It had come at a good time. Joseph II, son of Maria Theresa of Austria, and brother of the unfortunate Marie Antoinette (not yet but will be), encouraged the creation of a German opera. To this end, he commissioned his "playwriter" Gottlieb Stephanie, to write a libretto that, musically staged, would result in a jovial, joyful spectacle. Stephanie, a disreputable character in Vienna, did not think long or very hard about it. He took one already published and modified it according to his own ideas (the original author claimed "plagiarism", but without much eagerness, since he had taken it from another).

A box-office success
Well, there in Vienna was Mozart, the celebrated author of Idomeneo, looking for opportunities... The two artists worked for a year in perfect harmony and the premiere of the three-act singspiel The Abduction from the Seraglio was celebrated with overwhelming success at the Burgtheater on July 16, 1782, with Mozart conducting from the keyboard. With excellent box office, performances abounded although the composer received no income from them. He was only paid once for the work.

The Plot
The libretto was not exactly a masterpiece, but with its music, Mozart succeeded in making Stephanie's breezy stanzas his first big hit in Vienna. The libretto responds to the taste for "the exotic", which was all the rage in those years, although there was really nothing new about the fashion. As a leading historian and musicologist has pointed out, "Turkish operas, Turkish comedies, and Turkish novels were already in vogue in the 1600s". The story narrates the vicissitudes of Constanza, her maid and her fiancé, another servant, who after being captured during a pirate boarding, now serve a Turkish pasha, in his seraglio, his palace. Constanza's fiancé will try to rescue them. The story ends happily, thanks to the Pasha's clemency.

Cymbals and triangles
The novelty, perhaps, lies in the inclusion of "Turkish music" by means of instruments uncommon in the West for the time, such as cymbals or triangles, to create an "oriental" atmosphere. This is already noticeable in the Overture, with a very colorful atmosphere, capable of immediately introducing the audience to a fable-like ambiance.

With just over five minutes in length, the Overture is presented here, in a Vienna Symphony Orchestra performance, conducted by the Italian conductor Fabio Luisi.

Alban Berg, a little review - Lyric Suite - Andante amoroso

The Austrian composer Alban Maria Johannes Berg, together with his colleagues Schoenberg and Webern, make up the famous triumvirate of the Second Vienna School, one of the most important movements in the evolution of Western music in the 20th century. Their contributions constituted a renovating impact on the art of combining sounds, with the abandonment of tonality, then the adoption of the dodecaphonic technique, and later serialism; the latter, a Webern's contribution, mainly.

The young Berg

Alban Berg joined the future trinity of composers in 1904, at the age of nineteen, when Schoenberg took him on as a pupil after learning a number of songs composed by Alban. Born in Vienna into a well-to-do family of German origin, the young Berg was at that time a civil servant in the administration of the empire, and music was little more than a serious hobby for him. But as fate would have it, Alban's mother inherited no small fortune. The future composer gave up everything and devoted himself entirely to music.

Early works, and marriage

Under Schoenberg's tutelage, Berg composed his first works between 1907 and 1910. The following year he married, although his father-in-law never regarded him as the ideal husband for his daughter. He had his reasons, clearly class-based: the groom's financial insecurity and the low respectability of his family (Berg's sister was a lesbian).

Recognition, and the affair

But after the 1925 premiere of the opera Wossek, his masterpiece, Berg became both a recognized figure and a controversial author. His financial situation also improved and he was then able to focus on composing more comfortably.
That year and the following one, the author experienced one of his most pleasant periods, including a passing extramarital affair that, according to some scholars, is present in the background of one of his most seductive and mysterious works, the Lyric Suite for String Quartet, composed between 1925 and 1926. It was the first time the author made use of the twelve-tone system created by his master.

The good health of romanticism

Apart from an enigmatic cipher using German notation to seal his and the fleeting beloved's initials in the score, it is the naming of the suite's six sections that has brought the idea of the love story that would be hidden behind it. To each tempo indication, Berg added an adjective with "romantic" resonances that, seen as a whole, illustrate the obligatory plot of a typical love enthusiasm from the beginning of the world.

Sections:

Allegretto gioviale - Andante amoroso - Allegro misterioso - Adagio appasionato - Presto delirando-tenebroso - Largo desolato.

Andante amoroso
The most sensual and intimate movement, albeit with a somewhat whimsical atmosphere, is the Andante amoroso. It is presented here in a performance (audio only) by the famed Alban Berg Quartet, an ensemble born in Vienna in 1970, and dissolved in 2008 after the death of one of its most prominent members in 2005.

Schumann, Cello Concerto in A minor

During his relatively short existence, even for his time, Robert Schumann could only write seven works for soloist and orchestra. Of these, the Piano Concerto (1854) and the one written for cello in 1850 have today a regular presence on the world's stages. The former is in excellent health. Although less popular, the Cello Concerto can be pointed out as one of the favorites of the virtuosi of the instrument, given the reduced presence of great cello concertos of the Romantic period.

Düsseldorf
Happily married for ten years to Clara, the couple and their five children had just escaped the Dresden uprisings of May 1849 (in which Wagner participated enthusiastically, even on the barricades). In December of that year, he was offered the post of music director in Düsseldorf. As soon as he arrived, he composed the Cello Concerto, according to legend, in just two weeks. But he did not stay long in the city, as the maestro, it seems, was not cut out for conducting orchestras. After a year, his contract was rescinded. Robert and Clara will go on tour.

Robert Schumann in 1850
(1810 - 1856)

Concerto for cello and orchestra in A minor, opus 129
Schumann died six years later, and never saw the premiere of the concerto. The work will be performed for the first time in Leipzig in 1860 in honor of the fiftieth anniversary of the composer's birth.
The work, deeply romantic although largely devoid of dazzling virtuoso moments, includes three movements that follow one another, without pause, their tempi named in German.

Movements:
00:00   Nicht du znell (not too fast)
11:25   Langsam (slow)
15:19   Sehr lebhaft (very lively)

The rendition is by the young Austrian-Iranian cellist Kian Soltani, accompanied by the SWR Symphonieorchester, conducted by Christoph Eschenbach. 

Johann Stamitz, Clarinet Concerto

On one of his many trips through Central Europe to secure a position in a renowned orchestra, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart landed in Mannheim on October 30, 1777. The city enjoyed an intense musical life under the patronage of Elector Carl Theodor, and its orchestra was one of the best in Germany, so the 21-year-old Mozart's aspirations could not have been better directed. Unfortunately, despite befriending several musicians in the orchestra, including the Konzertmeister, the answer was the usual: "there was no place for him at the moment".

Mannheim School

A pity. Because if there had been "room", the famous orchestral ensemble that became a school under the title of Mannheim School could have increased its glory even more, when looking back and being able to say that among its members there was the most brilliant composer in history. 
Not so, but the German composers and musicians who wrote music for Carl Theodor's court from the middle of the 18th century until the end of the classical era, did blaze a trail. Among them, the Czech violinist and composer Johann Stamitz stands out.

Johann Stamitz, an innovator

Little is known about his life, other than he was born in Nemecky Brod (Bohemia) in mid-June 1717 and that he took lessons from his father. Whatever his path may have been, in 1742 we see him become a respected violinist in the Mannheim orchestra.

After a few years, he was appointed its conductor. It was under his leadership that the orchestra became so renowned, for the Czech composer's innovations played an important role in the development of the symphony as a genre.

Johann Stamitz (1717 - 1757)

To Johann Stamitz, for example, we owe the modern structure of the symphonic genre structured in four movements. Add to this the construction of the first movement with the structure of what later became known as "sonata form", with the first theme, second, development, and recapitulation.

Stamitz died in Mannheim very young, at the age of 39. His musician sons, Carl and Anton, will continue the task.

The oeuvre

During his short life, in addition to the obligatory sacred music, Stamitz produced about 72 symphonies, ten orchestral trios, and numerous concertos for solo instrument.
Among the latter, the Clarinet Concerto in B-flat major stands out. A large part of the original manuscripts have been lost, so it is impossible to date its composition, let alone venture a "premiere" date, other than the unknown date when Carl Theodor, the Elector, heard it for the first time.

Movements: 

(tempi are in brackets because the composer did not indicate them)

00        [Allegro] 

07:54   [Andante sostenuto]

12:04   [Rondo (Poco allegro)]

The performance is by the Chinese artist Jaehee Choi, accompanied by the New Fine Arts Project Orchestra.

Chopin, Ballade No 2 in F major

Most likely, Chopin finished the Ballade No. 2 in Majorca, while staying there in the company of George Sand and her children, in the winter of 1838-39. Or perhaps he only took care of its revision. In a letter to his friend Fontana, dated January 1839, Chopin tells him that he is sending the Ballade to Camille Pleyel, his publisher in Paris, along with a good batch of other pieces, the complete Preludes among them.

A hesitant dedication
It is well known that the work is dedicated to Robert Schumann, in retribution for the German composer's dedication to Chopin of his Kreisleriana, completed a few months earlier. Less known is that Chopin never played the work of his colleague, whose output he was reticent about, even though the generous Schumann spared no praise for almost all of Chopin's oeuvre for many years.

And truth be told, the purpose of dedicating the ballade to Schumann does not appear at all categorical or unrenounceable, as we read later in the letter to Fontana, already mentioned:

R. Schumann (1810 - 1856)

"[...] I would like my Preludes to be dedicated to Pleyel, and my Second Ballade to Schumann. Now, if Pleyel does not want to give up the dedication of the Ballade, then dedicate the preludes to Schumann..."

And the trade-off may have been for the better, for while Schumann greeted the Ballade No. 1 with fervent enthusiasm, he was somewhat less enthusiastic about the Second, which he found a bit "less artistic".

All in all, what has been pointed out should not be understood as Chopin's dislike of Schumann (which would be, on Chopin's part, at least an extravagance). It is simply that, as creators, the two artists were at antipodes, even if they were strictly contemporaries.

Chopin, young.
A painting by Ary Scheffer

Ballade No 2 in F major, opus 32
And they truly were at the antipodes, if we recall that for Chopin music was only music, unlike Schumann, who could find inspiration for musical creation in poetry. However (the perennial contradiction of a creative soul) Chopin confessed to his friend and ardent commentator that in composing the four Ballades he had taken inspiration from the reading of poems by his compatriot Adam Mickiewicz.

The "source"
For Ballade No. 2, the source poem is "Switez," which tells the story of Polish maidens from a besieged city who, to avoid falling prey to their captors, sink into the earth surrounding a lake. Turned into mysterious flowers, they adorn its shores ever since.

The piece is built on the alternation of two themes, one idyllic and the other a tempestuous burst of rapid arpeggios. The final bars evoke young girls turned into flowers.

The rendition is by the brilliant Chinese pianist Yundi Li, the youngest winner of the International Chopin Competition, in 2000, at the age of 18.

Von Weber, Overture to "Der Freischütz"

Carl Maria von Weber, cousin of Constance, Mozart's wife, was only 27 years old when he became director of the Prague Opera in 1813. He stayed there until 1817 when he went to Dresden to organize and conduct the German Opera. This task would force him to engage in a hard fight with the Italian lyric theater that in those days was monopolizing the audiences. By the way, they considered the idea of a German opera almost a contradiction in terms, despite the existing brilliant tradition of the singspiel, exemplified by Mozart's unparalleled Magic Flute.

Der Freischütz - A landmark opera
However, it was precisely under these circumstances that Weber was to compose a pivotal opera in the evolution of German dramatic music, thus paving the way for the emergence of Richard Wagner's proposal embodied in his "musical dramas" – so called by its author – thirty years later.

The opera in three acts Der Freischütz was begun on July 2, 1817, and finished on May 13, 1820. Regarded as the first German romantic opera, it premiered in Berlin in 1821 under the direction of its author, with immediate success. Shortly afterward it premiered with similar results in Vienna and Dresden.

Carl Maria von Weber

(1786 - 1826)

The Plot

True to his spirit of reading popular legends, Weber took inspiration from a very old Central European story centered on the figure of the "Freischütz", a hunter who makes a pact with the devil to obtain arrows that never miss the target, even if it is the devil himself. To the popular story, Weber added some romantic ingredients: the hunter is in love, and in his struggle to win the love of his beloved he turns to the Devil so that the girl sees him as the most skilled hunter in the whole region.

Today, the work is still performed quite regularly. And its beautiful Overture, as a concert piece, is a must for orchestral ensembles all over the world.

The Orquesta Joven (a very young one), a fraction of the Orquesta Sinfónica de Galicia, conducted by Rubén Gimeno.

C.M. von Weber, "Invitation to the Dance"

During his short life (39 years and months) Carl Maria von Weber wrote three operas, all three a success with audiences and critics, thus allowing him to be recognized as the initiator of German romantic opera. But he was also a brilliant pianist, and for the instrument, he wrote sonatas and concertos, as well as a number of short pieces, among which his most popular piano work, Invitation to the Dance, stands out.

Published in 1819, the work is dedicated to his wife, the singer Caroline Brandt, whom he had married two years earlier. At the time, the composer was director of the prestigious Dresden Opera, working intensely on the writing of the work that would be his greatest contribution, the opera Der Freischütz (The Freeshooter), which successfully premiered in 1821.

Carl M. von Weber (1786 - 1826)

The first concert waltz
Invitation to the Dance is the first concert waltz in the history of music, that is to say, it is the first piece in waltz form written to be listened to rather than danced. And despite not being danceable, the piece, with programmatic content, tells the story of a dance: a young man invites a beautiful girl to dance, who graciously accepts. After fluttering around the ballroom to the rhythm of a sequence of waltzes, they say goodbye and never see each other again.

In 1841, Hector Berlioz developed an orchestral version that helped to popularize the piece even more.
Presented here is the original piano version, highly demanding for the performer, not so much for the audience, who can joyfully attend to the generous sequence of simple waltzes. Be careful, however, not to burst into applause after the last resolute chords, as there is still a quiet coda, the real finale, to be heard.

The rendition is by the Russian pianist Peter Laul, at the Marinsky Theater in St. Petersburg.

Mozart, Piano Concerto No 2, K. 39

The salon, a meeting place for sophisticated social circles in Paris, played an important role in the cultural life of the 18th century. People talked there about literature, painting, music, poetry. Also about decoration, "good dress", and "good taste". By the middle of the century, good taste, or good tone, had imposed the tradition of inviting people to tea "English style". A sort of cocktail of our days, but at an earlier hour. It was accompanied by succulent dishes, which were consumed while listening to a group of musicians invited for the occasion.

At the Palais du Temple
The painting by Ollivier that heads this article illustrates the scene. Accompanied by his full court, the Prince de Conti celebrates an "English tea" in the four mirrors hall of the Palais du Temple, in Paris. On the left, as part of the group of musicians, a child is seated at the harpsichord... is Mozart. The painter is paying homage to the visit of the Mozart children to Paris in 1763. Wolfgang was then seven years old.

The pastiche
In Mozart's time, it was a widespread custom to give a "public" concert with fragments of various works. Gradually it also became a healthy custom (as widespread as it was) to compose one's own work by taking pieces from different authors. It was called "pasticcio", as it resembled the so-called operas, constructed with different arias to suit the abilities of different singers. Mozart was no stranger to pastiche, at least in his first four concertos. But that was the way of composing. Whether it was good or bad was another matter.

Piano Concerto No. 2 in B flat major
Along with three others (K 37, K 40-41), Mozart would have composed it at the age of eleven, back in Salzburg after the extensive family tour for more than three years through Europe.
The vast majority of scholars attribute it to Mozart, although it is important to note that the manuscript is almost entirely in the handwriting of Leopold, the father. However, all agree that the piano part may have been improvised by Wolfgang and committed to paper by Leopold.

Movements:
The materials Mozart used to construct the concerto for piano and orchestra come from sonatas attributed to a pair of German virtuosi whom Mozart admired, and whose work he may have encountered in Paris.

00:00   Allegro spiritoso
05:12   Andante staccato
11:05   Molto allegro

The performance (audio only) is by the excellent American pianist Murray Perahia, accompanied by the English Chamber Orchestra.

Chopin, Prelude Opus 28 No 6

When Chopin traveled from Paris to Majorca in 1838 in the company of George Sand and her children, he had finished only two preludes of the 26 he was going to compose. But the remaining ones were sketched out. He had worked on them for long periods, in 1836 and 1837, and his intention was to finish them there, in the peace and quiet offered by the "island of calm", as it was then called. We know that the Mallorca winter proved to be not very calm and that the stay was not entirely pleasant, but Frédérick still managed to finish his preludes.

Its fabulous construction ("I travel through strange spaces" wrote Chopin) was witnessed by Georges Sand:

"... In those moments he composed the most beautiful of those brief pages that he modestly called preludes. They are masterpieces. Several of them bring to mind [...] funeral songs.... Others are melancholy and soft [...] Others bear a mournful sadness and at the same time they enrapture the ear, they tear the heart."

Camille Pleyel, his friend and publisher in Paris, was handed the finished preludes in January 1839. For all of them, Chopin asked for four thousand francs, the approximate equivalent of about three months of teaching. Dedicated to Pleyel, the French edition appeared in September of that year. Shortly thereafter, they were published in Germany and England.

Prelude No. 6 in B minor

Unabashedly steeped in "a mournful sadness", the brief piece of fewer than two minutes length claims from the left hand the steady sustaining of an unremarked lament, a chant, an elegiac melody, while the right hand plucks simple chords with regularity.

The prelude was played for Chopin's funeral (also No. 4) by the organist of the Madeleine church. We have no doubt of the emotion that must have gripped the souls present on that October 30, 1849, at the last farewell to this other magnificent but complicated soul that Chopin was.

The rendition is by South Korean pianist Chi Ho Han, at the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw. 

Richard Wagner, "Rienzi" - Overture

Robert Ley, a well-known and highly corrupt Nazi party leader who committed suicide in his cell during the Nuremberg trials, once asked Hitler why he had decided to open the annual party meeting with the overture to Richard Wagner's opera Rienzi. The dictator replied thus:

"...It's not just a musical question. At the age of twenty-four this man, an innkeeper's son, persuaded the Roman people to drive out the corrupt Senate by reminding them of the magnificent past of the Roman Empire. Listening to this blessed music as a young man in the theater at Linz, I had the vision that I too must someday succeed in uniting the German Empire and making it great once more."

Well. At the end of the war, Germany did not end up greater but rather reduced to rubble. The anecdote, however, serves to illustrate Hitler's curious fascination with Rienzi, the mythical hero of Wagner's work who will end his days trapped and defeated.

The play, whose full title is Rienzi, Last of the Roman Tribunes, is based on a novel of the same title, a 19th century best seller by an English author. It tells the story of Cola di Rienzi, a papal notary turned political leader, who lived in medieval Italy and managed to defeat the noble classes of Rome by handing over power to the people. His vicissitudes will end when he must face, with a few followers, his fatal destiny.

R. Wagner (1813 - 1893)

With texts and music by Wagner, the opera was written between July 1838 and November 1840. Its premiere, an apotheosis, took place in Dresden on October 20, 1842, and it represented the musical consecration of the composer at the age of twenty-nine. The Flying Dutchman (1841), Tannhäuser (1843), and Lohengrin (1845) were soon to follow.

The play is extensive. Originally it had five acts and its representation would take more than six hours. Wagner wrote shorter versions later, but it is still rarely performed today, although its Overture still enjoys wide public acclaim.

The Orchestra of the Franz Liszt University of Music, Weimar, conducted by Nicolas Pasquet, performs Rienzi Overture.

J. Strauss, Tales from the Vienna Woods

Around 1860, at the age of thirty-five, Johann Strauss Jr. envisioned that the Viennese waltz, the famous dance that captivated the Viennese at that time, could gain acceptance and recognition among an international audience. If, in addition, he managed to transfer to that new audience part of the spirit and charm of the land from which he came, so much the better. With this in mind, he set about composing music that would reflect the magic and enchantment of the forests surrounding 19th-century imperial Vienna.

Strauss Jr. (1825 - 1899)

Tales from the Vienna Woods
And he was right. The waltz Geschichten aus dem Wienerwald is, indisputably, after the unsurpassed Blue Danube, one of Johann Strauss Jr.'s most recognized waltzes worldwide.
It is a concert piece, no doubt. Its complete version lasts about fifteen minutes, although we usually hear reduced versions, with uneven results, as the conductor in charge omits the repetitions or even one or two complete pieces. Brazilian conductor and composer Fabio Costa is an exception. He is also an exception in a broader sense, as he usually addresses a few words to the audience at each concert.

Violins, in absence of a zither
The work, composed in 1868 (one year after the Blue D...) originally included a virtuoso zither part. Since today, at least in the Western world, there are no "zitherists" or zither players around the corner, it is customary to replace it with a quartet of violins, or a couple of them if the orchestra is not very large. This is precisely the case with the version we present here. The sections originally commissioned to the zither correspond here to minutes 2:12 to 2:39, and 14:08 to 14:43. And the waltz proper begins at minute 3:01.

Fabio Costa conducts the Minas Gerais Philharmonic Orchestra.

Beethoven, Sonata No 15, "Pastorale"

Although his deafness had already begun to trouble him seriously, the thirty-year-old Beethoven entered the new century, the nineteenth, in high spirits. With his financial problems practically solved, he was encouraged to write to his friend and physician Franz Wegeler: "I can have six or seven publishers or more for every piece, if I choose; they no longer bargain with me—I demand, and they pay—so you see this is a very good thing". But in the same letter, later on, he comes clean about his health: "...my hearing during the last three years has become gradually worse... my ears are buzzing and ringing perpetually, day and night" ... "I lead a hermit's life". 

1801, four sonatas
All in all, it is a golden period and a highly fruitful one. If we only consider his sonata production, the year 1801 saw the birth of no less than four sonatas: the one from opus 26, the two "quasi una fantasia" sonatas from opus 27 (the popular "Moonlight", one of them) and the sonata from opus 28 in D major, called "Pastorale" not by Beethoven but by his publisher, as was customary. (It is still seven years before the symphony of the same name appears, which in this case, it seems, was so titled by Beethoven himself).

Beethoven in 1803

Sonata No 15 opus 28 in D major, called "Pastoral" - the return to the old canons
Dedicated to Count Joseph von Sonnenfels, an "Illuminati" who was Mozart's friend and patron, the piece is usually received with some disdain by audiences and performers. With very little justice, indeed. A weak motivation may lie in its manifest return to the old canons in comparison with the sort of formal liberation that the three preceding sonatas represented.

It turns out that the maestro still had something left to tell us in the four-movement formal scheme of his early sonatas. He did not always have to be an iconoclast. He could also show himself as a creator of simple beauty, calm and quiet, except for the finale, the only truly "virtuosic" movement.

Movements:
00        Allegro: A pedal note on the tonic D will accompany the first 24 measures. And in one                form or another, this sustained bass figure will be maintained throughout the piece.
11:51   Andante
19:57   Scherzo - Allegro vivace
22:39   Rondo - Allegro ma non troppo

The performance is by Daniel Barenboim. The cycle of the 32 sonatas, Berlin, 2005.

Friedrich Kuhlau, Sonatina Opus 20 No 1

After slipping on the icy streets of Lüneburg in northern Germany, the future German composer and teacher Friedrich Kuhlau went blind in one eye when he was only seven years old.
The family had only been there for a short time and was forced to move to a new place of residence from time to time because the father, a musician in a military band, had to follow his garrison when it was relocated.

A remarkable pianist

Born in 1786 in Uelzen, near Hanover, he finished his schooling in Brunswick at fourteen. But it was in Hamburg that he began to study piano and composition. There he composed his first works: some songs and chamber music.

And despite his early disability, by 1804 he had become a remarkable performer on the piano. Six years later, he would earn his living by giving recitals in Copenhagen, where he had fled from the Napoleonic troops that ravaged part of northern Germany in those years. He lived there until his early death in 1832.

Meeting Beethoven

Seven years earlier, in 1825, he had had the opportunity to meet Beethoven in Vienna. A great admirer of the master, after befriending him, he devoted himself to the task of making a good part of his work known in the musical circles of Copenhagen. The maestro must have been very grateful, presumably, first of all, because Beethoven was already old and had only two years left to live.

Friedrich Kuhlau (1786 - 1832)

Sonatinas, the pedagogical work

Kuhlau was a prolific composer, mainly of operas, chamber music and works for flute (the latter demanded by the economic contingency – in every house there would be a flute, we presume). Nevertheless, today he is mostly remembered for his piano works, which are highly pedagogical in value, including a concerto for the instrument. His sonatinas are the most recorded, and what we can most successfully listen to in encores. Not very demanding, they are an excellent ground for preparing the major challenge of the great sonatas, those of the maestro he admired, for example.

In a rendition by the Japanese pianist Mitsuro Nagai, the Sonatina No. 1 from opus 20, in C major, is presented here. Its eight minutes duration includes three sections: Allegro - Andante - Rondo (allegro).

Antonin Dvorak, Serenade for Strings

 
Like Mozart in his time (and some other composer that escapes me), the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak fell in love with a beautiful girl but ended up marrying her sister, the younger one, for the sake of coincidence. The union with Anna Cermakova was a happy one (so was Mozart, with Constanze). The couple had nine children, although three of them died in infancy.

Organist at St. Adalbert
The composer had met the Cermakova girls while he was teaching piano lessons. But after his marriage (Antonin was 31, Anna 19) he abandoned the lessons because his former organ teacher got him a permanent position as organist at St. Adalbert's Church in Prague. There he remained from 1874 to 1877. The salary was miserable but it had the advantage of arriving punctually every month. For the young couple it was an invaluable help.

Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)

The scholarship for talented subjects
Despite the circumstances, Dvorak managed to write a number of important works around this time. And it wasn't all bad either. In 1874 he applied for an annual state scholarship awarded by the Austro-Hungarian Empire for its talented and needy subjects, and Antonin earned it that year and the one that followed.

In 1875 his first son was born, and also his Fifth Symphony, the Quintet for Strings No. 2, and the Serenade for Strings in E major. The latter, one of his most frequently performed works and for whose composition the young master needed no more than two weeks.

Serenade for strings in E major, opus 22
Composed between May 3 and 14, 1875, its premiere took place in Prague on December 10, 1876, with an overwhelming success, which reaffirmed the high esteem in which the composer held the piece. Idyllic and peaceful in character, its music flows easily and naturally through its five brief movements.

Movements:
00        Moderato
05:08  Tempo di Valse
12:14  Scherzo: Vivace
17:56  Larghetto
24:03  Finale: Allegro vivace

The performance is by the string ensemble of the Royal Northern College of Music, Great Britain.

Clementi, Sonatina Op 36 No 5 / Yuja Wang

The remarkable Italian pianist, composer, pedagogue, publisher, and piano maker Muzio Clementi published his "Progressive" Sonatinas opus 36 in 1797, at the age of 45, when he had been living in London for thirty years.
They are one of his most famous works as a pedagogue and were published, of course, with a pedagogical purpose, intended for young bourgeois piano lovers. It was an extraordinary contribution. And it still is, two hundred and twenty years later.
This is the author's great merit. There is no classical piano student today who has not studied and chosen at least one of Maestro Clementi's "progressive" sonatinas for an exam.

The Opus 36
Over the course of his life, the master composed no less than 110 piano sonatas. He called a group of them – the earliest and simplest – "progressive", because their difficulty increases from the first to the last. Six of them make up Opus 36. And if No. 1 does not demand much from the left hand, the last one requires great skill to play complex rhythms, as well as exquisite phrasing.

Muzio Clementi (1752 - 1832)

The Art of Playing the Pianoforte
In general terms, the complete work emphasizes the basic skills in learning the piano: dynamic control, even touch, and melodic phrasing. In a new edition of 1803, published as a supplement to yet another of his pedagogical contributions (Introduction to the Art of Playing the Pianoforte), Clementi included specific instructions on ornamentation and arpeggios. As in 1797, the work was an immediate success. It was the fate of the master, who died rich in 1832.

The six Sonatinas have different characters, but in all of them, grace and charming melodies are present.

Sonatina No. 5 from Opus 36, in G major - Movements
It is in 3 movements and is the longest of the whole set, lasting just over seven minutes. Its second movement is a "Swiss air", made up of unusual six-bar phrases.

00       Presto

02:20  Air Suisse. Allegro moderato

04:02  Rondo. Allegro di molto

The performance is by the remarkable Chinese pianist Yuja Wang, when she was nine years old.

Mozart, Mass in C minor - "Kyrie"

 
On July 31, 1782, Mozart wrote to his father Leopold requesting permission to marry Constanze Weber. But he did not wait for a reply. Four days later the couple married in Vienna's St. Stephen's Cathedral. Mozart was 26 years old. Constanze was 20. Mozart had finally succeeded in making Constanze his wife without Leopold's consent. In a vow of gratitude to fate, Wolfgang undertook to write a mass as an offering to Constanze. The day after the marriage, magically, Leopold's consent arrived.

The Mozart family in Salzburg
From the autumn of 1782 until the middle of 1783 Mozart worked on the score. In January 1873 he wrote to his father telling him that the mass was fifty percent finished. But when the couple visited Leopold in Salzburg, where the Mass had been arranged to be premiered, the work still remained unfinished. With fragments from other masses, it was nonetheless premiered on October 26, 1873, in a parish church (the cathedral was out of the question due to the recent break with Archbishop Colloredo). Constanze sang the soprano soloist parts.

Constanze Mozart, in 1802
(1762 - 1842)

Mass in C minor, K. 427
As curiously happened with almost all of Mozart's compositions related to Constance, the work remained unfinished forever. The traditional sections of the "common Mass" (as opposed to the Requiem Mass), Mozart would have finished are the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Benedictus, leaving the Credo begun and the Agnus Dei unbegun. However, it is also argued that the composer may have finished the work in Salzburg a few days before its premiere, with the originals being lost.

Kyrie
The most frequently appealed section is presented here as a stand-alone piece, the Kyrie, approximately seven minutes long, in a rendition by the City Chamber Orchestra of Hong Kong and choirs, conducted by Helmuth Rilling. Soprano Louise Kwong sings what Constanze sang almost two hundred and fifty years ago.

Beethoven, Sonata No 32, Opus 111

Franz Liszt, the creator of the modern recital, suffered slightly disappointed after visiting Italy in 1838 and performing as a concert pianist at Milan's Alla Scala. The audience, no doubt, would have roared with enthusiasm if the 27-year-old Hungarian maestro had offered them part of his vast repertoire of piano transcriptions of bel canto opera. But he didn't. This time Liszt appeared with a repertoire made up entirely of Beethoven sonatas, convinced that it was time for the master from Bonn, who had been missing for eleven years, to be considered at the height of his stature by the public at large. The opposite was true: the common Milanese audience was not yet at Beethoven's level.

Waiting for the 20th century
We do not know the sonatas Liszt played for this occasion, but it is to be expected that he did not include the last three, which are more difficult to digest for the common public. In fact, a great Polish pedagogue, in the middle of the 19th century, advised his students simply not to study them, although the reason was mainly economic: there would be no audience to present them to. Liszt could attest to this. The public who loved Beethoven's complete sonatas will only emerge in the 20th century thanks to technology. Through the use of players, it was possible to bring back home that music that had been conceived a hundred years ago to be listened to serenely and attentively by a small group of people.

The triptych
In the course of three years, from 1820 to 1822, Beethoven undertook the composition of the triptych made up of his three last sonatas, publishing in each year, the opus 109, 110, and 111. During these years, the master's health deteriorated. Nevertheless, he was able to alternate this work with the writing of pieces as great as the Missa Solemnis or the resolution of the finale of the Ninth Symphony.  It seems that the maestro knew how to make the most of the moments when, despite everything, he seemed to "feel a new life", as he wrote in his notes.

Title page of the first edition

Sonata No 32 in C minor, opus 111
Certainly, the late sonatas are not Beethoven's most popular. But only a few of the latter can rival in depth and richness of sound with the last sonata, the Sonata in C minor No 32, opus 111, considered one of the greatest piano sonatas ever written, capable of leading the listener into sound worlds hitherto unknown, let alone explored.

Novel rhythmic patterns
Published in 1822, it is dedicated, like so many others, to his friend and mentor, Archduke Rudolph. In its construction, Beethoven departs from convention and writes only two movements, which he calls Maestoso and Arietta, the latter the longest, with a structure of theme and variations. Surprisingly for those who listen to it for the first time, the second movement contains rhythmic patterns that only a hundred years later will be heard again and will be a novelty to the point of receiving denominations hitherto unheard in music: swing and boogie-woogie.

Movements:
00       Maestoso: Allegro con brio ed appassionato
9:02    Arietta: Adagio molto, semplice e cantabile. Theme and variations:

   Var I:     11:43
   Var II:    13:45 (the swing starts)
   Var III:  15:30 (the boogie-woogie starts)
   Var IV:  17:39
   Var V:    20:55
   Var VI:  22:44

The performance is by Chilean maestro Claudio Arrau.