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

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

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

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

Igor Stravinsky (1882 - 1971)

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

The Firebird
Igor was happier than ever. Even so, he did not imagine that celebrity was just around the corner and that he was going to conquer it overnight. Indeed, in the late summer of 1909, he received a telegram from Diaghilev commissioning him to write the score for the ballet The Firebird, scheduled for the next season of the Ballets Russes. Despite the short deadline granted, Igor completed the work on time, which premiered on June 25 of that year at the Paris Opera, not without some setbacks. The frenetic rhythm of the music unsettled some dancers, so much so that the famous Anna Pavlova refused to dance "such barbarities". Tamara Karsavina (in the "photo") had to replace her.

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

Listening "with other ears"

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

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

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

Three Movements from Petrushka

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

Stravinsky, the pianist

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

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

The three movements

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

00:00  No 1 Danse russe (Russian Dance)

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

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

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

Mozart, Horn Concerto 3 in E-flat major

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

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

Wolfgang, the playful one

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

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

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

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

Anton Rubinstein, Piano Concerto No 4

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

Anton Rubinstein (1829 - 1894)

His career

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

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

The Legacy

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

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

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

Movements

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

00:00  Moderato assai

11:31  Andante

22:18  Allegro

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

Beethoven, Symphony No. 1 in C major

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

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

Symphony No. 1 in C major, op 21

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

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

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

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

Schoenberg, Three Piano pieces, Op 11

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

Schoenberg, musician, and painter

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

The novel twist

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

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

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

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

Three Piano Pieces Opus 11 

00       No 1  Mässige (moderato)

03:20  No 2  Mässige (moderato)

09:47  No 3  Bewegte (movido)

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

Mozart, Piano Concerto No 17

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

Concertos on request

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

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

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

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

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

The critics of the time

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

Movements

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

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

13:33   Andante  - Ten minutes of Mozartian elegance.

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

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

Schubert, "Wanderer" Fantasy

During his short life span of just 31 years, Franz Schubert wrote an amount of 23 piano compositions that follow the sonata musical form, although only twelve of them were properly finished due to little Franz's tendency to procrastination, i.e., his propensity to delay everything, for one reason or another.
He also wrote eight "fantasias", of which the one popularly called "Wanderer" is, in our opinion, a full-fledged sonata, except for the name. Little inclined to instrumental pyrotechnics, it is nevertheless one of his most technically demanding piano pieces.

The publishing indifference

Composed in 1822, the work did not enjoy great recognition after its publication, as was usual for the author for a long time. It is known that publishers published his works with some reluctance, under the modality "on commission", quite meager, by the way. Therefore, it is not surprising to hear some scholars say that Schubert may have dedicated the Fantasia to a wealthy pupil of Hummel with the veiled intention of being financially rewarded.

Nevertheless, at the time. the author was only twenty-five years old and was enjoying life in the company of his musician, poet, and painter friends. These were the good years of the famous "schubertiades".

Fantasia for piano in C major, opus 15, called "Wanderer" - Sections:

Its four movements, or sections, are played without interruption, each beginning with a variant of the primordial motif, the opening phrase of the lied "Der Wanderer," composed by Schubert seven years earlier, and from which the popular nickname derives. This characteristic also makes it possible to conceive of the work as a sonata written in the form of a theme and variations.

00       Allegro con fuoco

06:32  Adagio

13:39  Presto

18:50  Allegro

The performance is by the Romanian pianist Herbert Schuch.

Chopin, Piano Sonata No 3

On February 21, 1842, Chopin gave in Paris one of his last recitals. As was still the custom, he accompanied a couple of friends, one a singer and the other a cellist, to finish with a selection of his own pieces. He still had seven years to live but his health showed clear signs of irreparable deterioration. Two years later, with great effort, he accompanied his young friend, Georges Valentin Alkan, to present a version for two pianos and eight hands of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony.

But these were supreme efforts. And naturally, also the production of music had begun to diminish. Let us just note that in 1848 he wrote only one waltz (in B major, without opus number). Only once in the past had he had a year of such scant creativity: 1844, when from his pen came just one piece, his third and last piano sonata. That year, to his further discouragement, he received the news of his father's death in Warsaw. To his consolation, he received a visit from his sister Ludwika, invited to spend a few days in Nohant courtesy of George Sand.

Sonata No. 3 in B minor, opus 58
Although, as we all know, Chopin was essentially a miniaturist, the writing of his vigorous ballades or scherzos must have developed in him the necessary ability to fully undertake the production of works in a genre generally considered "major", such as the piano sonata. We say this because there are those who maintain that one of the spurs for the composition of his third sonata is due to the need to respond to some criticism received by the novel structure of the previous sonata, the famous "Funeral Sonata".

Similar in structure to the latter (though the funeral march has been replaced by a full, lyrical largo), its movements are:
00        Allegro maestoso
09:40  Scherzo: Molto vivace
12:24  Largo
22:40  Finale: Presto non tanto; Agitato

The rendition, terrific, is by the 1994 Singapore-born pianist Kate Liu during her participation in the 2015 International Chopin Competition in Warsaw.

Schumann, "Kreisleriana" / Yuja Wang

It took Robert Schumann only four days in April 1838 to compose one of his masterpieces for the piano. The author was 28 years old, he was in love with Clara Wieck, and he was beginning to live the ordeal that he and Clara would have to go through to unite their lives in 1840.
Although it was written with Clara in mind, and for her, the work is dedicated to Chopin, whom Schumann admired with no qualms. But, according to the story, Chopin only liked the first page, the one containing the dedication. However, he would reciprocate the following year with the somewhat faint dedication of the Ballade No. 2.

Kreisler, a fictional character
Of course, Chopin must have been surprised by the title of the work, "Kreisleriana" (just as it still surprises today). And how could it not, when Robert Schumann himself pointed out that it would only be understandable to Germans. Indeed, it is taken from Johannes Kreisler, an eccentric fictional character and alter ego of the German poet, musician, and music critic E.T.A. Hoffmann. A singular chapel master, Kreisler is characterized as "a romantic who has lost his sense of reality." He unites madness and tenderness, uncontrolled and cunning, in a fantastic setting.

"Kreisleriana"
These are all aspects of the character that Schumann will work out musically by permuting the fantastic and the lyrical, the quirky and the adorable, and turning this alternation of nuances into the characteristic clues of the work.

Subjective and highly virtuosic, Kreisleriana is one of the high points in Schumann's piano literature. It is composed of eight sections, alternating (as it should be) slow, beautiful and serene movements with pressing and passionate ones, an alternation that each section also exhibits in itself. The tempi for each were originally noted by Schumann in German. The complete work lasts approximately half an hour.

Sections:
00        Ausserst bewegt (Agitatissimo)
02:48  Sehr innig und nicht zu rasch (Con molto expressione, non troppo presto)
10:10  Sehr aufgeregt (Molto agitato)
14:45  Sehr langsam (Lento assai)
18:34  Sehr lebhaft (Vivace assai)
22:15  Sehr langsam (Lento assai)
25:53  Sehr rasch (Molto presto)
28:06  Schnell und spielend (Vivace e scherzando)

Enigmatically, the piece ends without a hint of bravura in the lower part of the keyboard.
The rendition is by the outstanding pianist Yuja Wang, born in Beijing in 1987.

Tchaikovsky, Symphony No 6 "Pathétique" - 4th Mov

By 1893, the year of the composition and premiere of his sixth and last Symphony, it had been three years since Tchaikovsky had received the painful letter from Frau von Meck announcing the severance of their epistolary relations. By the way, it was the end of the generous pension with which she had assisted him for thirteen long years without asking for anything in return. It was a severe emotional blow, but he had already recovered. A successful tour of the USA in 1891 confirmed the maestro as a musical personality at the height of celebrity. But also, perhaps, at the peak of his creative capacity. A "great symphony" had to be composed, and it was now.

A symphony with a program

True to his severe sense of self-criticism, the master discarded several drafts (and more than that) during 1892. The following year, in a letter of February 22nd to his nephew Vladimir (recurrent addressee) he tells him of his frustrated attempts but, also, that he has almost finished a "program symphony" (which he would dedicate to Vladimir):

"You must know that I have destroyed an almost complete symphony... Going to Paris... I had the idea of another program symphony... The program is saturated with personal experiences, so much so that even while I was mentally composing it during the trip I cried a lot [...] You cannot imagine the happiness I experience when I see that for me inspiration has not yet ended and that I am still capable of doing something..."

The inspiration was not over, of course not. The "program symphony" was written between February and August 1893, and successfully premiered with the maestro conducting on October 28 of that year, in St. Petersburg.

Tchaikovsky, the year of his death
(1840 - 1893, Nov 6)

"Pathetic" Symphony
After the warm reception, Tchaikovsky was not satisfied with his previously cherished title of "program symphony". He discussed it with his brother Modest, who suggested as a subtitle the Russian word "pateticheski", which has little to do with our prosaic sense of "pathetic" (mournful, pitiful), but in Russian points rather to that which moves, that which touches.

Pyotr Ilyich was grateful for Modest's suggestion and instructed his publisher to change it. But within a few days he changed his mind, asking that it be titled simply Symphony No. 6. The following week, Tchaikovsky was dead. The publisher, somewhat confused perhaps, subtitled the work so that everyone would understand: "Symphonie Pathétique", in French. This is how it is known to this day.

Movements

Symphony No. 6 in B minor is in four movements, arranged in a singular sequence. It begins with an adagio; and where traditionally goes the slow movement the master decided for a singular "waltz" in 5/4 time signature; instead of the scherzo (third movement) Tchaikovsky wrote a graceful march; and as fourth and final movement, he arranged an adagio of a somewhat funereal character, a decision that has lent to speculate that with it the master would have written his own Requiem.

Mov. 4 Adagio lamentoso - andante

The listening of the complete work lasts about fifty minutes. Presented here is the fourth movement in a performance by the Orchestra of the Teatro alla Scala in Milan, conducted by the Russian maestro Yuri Temirkanov.

Tchaikovsky held the work in high esteem. He was not alone. One biographer has noted of this last movement: "If Tchaikovsky had written only these last twenty-five bars, it would be enough to make him one of the greatest composers of our time".

Mijail Glinka / Balakirev: "The Lark"

In 1836, Mikhail Glinka astonished the Russian public and critics with the premiere of his first opera, Life for the Tsar. He was 32 years old and was about to initiate the composition of a second work in the genre, Ruslan and Liudmila, after the homonymous poem by Pushkin. But it would take him five years to complete it, due, among other things, to his broken health after suffering the abandonment of his wife. One day, Maria Petrovna Ivanova, a girl from St. Petersburg, left him for another, without subtleties.

The despondency
The union had not been happy, and the breakup was to be expected, although never with the ease that Maria Petrovna had shown. The composer sought refuge in nature. He left St. Petersburg and spent long periods in the countryside. But he did not stop composing. Even in despondency, in 1840 he took inspiration from some verses of his friend and poet Nestor Kukolnik. On them, he wrote a cycle of twelve songs, which he gathered under the collective title of "Farewell to St. Petersburg".

Mijail Glinka, in 1840
(1804 - 1857)

"The Lark"
It is the most popular of those songs. But it is more so in its arrangement for solo piano. In 1855, two years before his death, Glinka met a young Mili Balakirev, whom he encouraged to abandon mathematics for good and devote himself to composing.

In gratitude to his mentor and friend, among his early compositions, Balakirev transcribed for piano a number of Glinka's songs.
The most applauded has been, of course, The Lark.

The piece owes to Glinka, undoubtedly, the exceptionally beautiful and sad melody. To Balakirev, the musical line and drawing.

The rendition is by the pianist Olga Scheps, born in Moscow and based in Germany.

Chopin, 24 Preludes Op 28 / Yuja Wang

Chopin finished the 24 Preludes Opus 28 in Majorca during the winter he spent there in the company of George Sand and her children, in 1838-39. It was no easy task. On the island, Chopin fell ill, got better, and then fell ill again. He first worked on a dilapidated rented piano until he got the pianino sent to him by Camille Pleyel, his publisher friend, pianist, and piano maker. He had promised him, five hundred francs in advance, to finish the preludes there on the island and send them to Paris as soon as they were finished.

Via Julian Fontana, a mutual friend, Pleyel was informed of progress and setbacks over two months. On November 15, Chopin wrote: "You will soon receive the preludes"; on December 3: "I cannot send you the manuscripts because they are not yet ready"; on the 14th of the same month: "I hope to send the texts very soon"; on the 28th: "I cannot send you the preludes. They are not finished. But now I am better and will work". Finally, on January 12, 1839, he writes to Fontana: "I am sending you the preludes [...] It seems to me that there are no mistakes. Give a copy to Probst [the Leipzig publisher] and the manuscript to Pleyel...".

For the 24 little jewels, Chopin charged two thousand francs. Rather, this is what Pleyel promised for the complete series after seeing in Paris the preludes that were already finished; hence, the " advance " of five hundred francs.

Reception
Published in Paris in September 1839 (with a dedication to Pleyel), also in Berlin and soon after in London, the Preludes were very well received, marveling the musical circles of the time.
Liszt asserted of them:

"--Chopin's Preludes are compositions of an order entirely apart... they are poetic preludes, analogous to those of a great contemporary poet, who cradles the soul in golden dreams..."

Schuman, somewhat more cautiously, noted:

"I must mark them as very remarkable. I confess that I expected something very different, with a lot of style, like his Etudes. It is almost the opposite, sketches, beginnings of studies, perhaps ruins.... But in each piece we find his refined, pearly writing: it is Fréderic Chopin's, we recognize it even in the pauses and in his ardent breathing. He is the most daring and haughty soul of today...".

The genesis
Although it is not at all evident in his music, Chopin worshipped Bach; already as a child, he was one of his gods (the other being Mozart). It is not surprising then that he decided to build a series of short pieces systematically ordered, in tribute to the German master, or in tribute to the Well-Tempered Clavier but without fugues: the days are different. In addition, the Polish genius had a recent model: Hummel's Preludes in all keys, fifteen years earlier. Chopin will continue the path.

Arrangement of the series
Apart from the matter of the absent fugue, unlike Bach, Chopin will arrange his 24 preludes in the major and relative minor keys by advancing through the "circle of fifths". That is, starting in the key of C major, the next prelude goes in the relative minor key of C, say, A minor. Now comes the leap of fifth: the next prelude is in G major... the next one in E minor, relative of G. Leap of fifth: D major; relative minor: B minor. Etc.

Unitary work vs. independent pieces
The particular arrangement described above has led some scholars to believe that Chopin's intention was to construct a unitary work whose parts were to be performed in succession, one after the other. But the truth is that Chopin himself rarely played more than three or four preludes in the Parisian salons, and never the complete series. In our days something similar happens: perhaps not discographically, but it is undeniable in public performances. Today's pianists may include one or two preludes as part of the program, but more often than not they give us the short pieces as an encore at the end of a concert.

The unitary work

Let us note, in passing, that there are two other pieces (some speak of three) by Chopin that fit perfectly into the style: a Prelude from opus 45, from 1841, and another in A minor without opus number, from 1843. But when it comes to performing "all" of Chopin's Preludes, even on record, the performers stick strictly to the work reviewed here: the 24 Preludes from Opus 28, whose duration in a recital does not reach 40 minutes, as happens with any sonata of the period intended to nourish the first part of a performance.

The brilliant China-born pianist Yuja Wang, treats us to the complete work in this recording at the Teatro La Fenice, Venice, from a few years ago, during the 2016 - 17 chamber music season. A gem in every sense of the term.

The 24 Preludes Opus 28

Taken individually, there are Preludes to suit all tastes. Their length varies from a scant thirty seconds to five minutes and a little more of that one that could be considered long. In terms of tempo, there are long, or slow, or andantino, or molto agitato or vivace... as shown below.

00:00  No. 1 in C major, agitato
01:21  No. 2 in A minor, lento
03:14  No. 3 in G major, vivace
04:24  No. 4 in E minor, largo
06:12  No. 5 in D major, allegro molto
06:44  No. 6 in B minor, lento assai
08:36  No. 7 in A major, andantino
09:25  No. 8 in F-sharp minor, molto agitato
11:17  No. 9 in E major, largo
12:34  No. 10 in C-sharp minor, allegro molto
13:03  No. 11 in B major, vivace
13:42  No. 12 in  G-sharp minor, presto
15:05  No. 13 in  F-sharp major, lento
18:08  No. 14 in E-flat minor, allegro
18:57  No. 15 in D-flat  major, sostenuto
24:04  No. 16 in B-flat minor, presto con fuoco
25:09  No. 17 in A-flat major, allegreto
28:12  No. 18 in F minor, allegro molto agitato
29:09  No. 19 in E-flat major, vivace
30:41  No. 20 in C minor, largo
32:13  No. 21 in B-flat major, cantabile
34:01  No. 22 in G minor, molto agitato
34:47  No. 23 in F major, moderato
35:36  No. 24 in D minor, allegro appassionato

Beethoven, "Rage over a lost penny", rondo / Yuja Wang

The manuscript of Beethoven's sprightly and charming rondo entitled Rondo alla ingharese quasi un capriccio was "lost" for nearly one hundred and twenty years. Today it is a favorite of pianists, to be used as a graceful encore, but during Beethoven's lifetime, it is unlikely to have been heard on any stage. The manuscript, apparently incomplete, was found among Beethoven's belongings after his death in 1827.

The following year, it was published by his friend, colleague, and publisher Anton Diabelli, who reportedly concealed the fact that the composition appeared to be unfinished. After the 1828 publication, the manuscript disappeared and was only rediscovered in the USA in 1945. This time it was found among the belongings of a lady named Noble, who had kept it in her possession for at least 20 years. And indeed, the original shows some discrepancies with the later versions of the Diabelli edition, all based on it.

In any case, with the discovery in hand, it was possible to know the time of the piece's composition, since the manuscript, in its last pages, contains sketches of works of known date, the years 1795-98. Thus it could be concluded that the rondo belonged to the same period. It is the work of a Beethoven in his twenties, approaching his thirties, living in Vienna for at least three years.

"Rage over a lost penny"

The piece is also known by the curious title "Rage over a lost penny, vented in a caprice". The words appear written in the manuscript but not by Beethoven's hand. It is speculated that they could be the work of his friend and first biographer Anton Schindler, who was known for often taking liberties with his famous friend, which led more than once to angry, though transitory, disagreements.

A "harmless rage"

Fantasizing that the master had indeed drawn inspiration from a fit of passing anger, Robert Schumann (who by Beethoven's death was 17 years old) would later write "...it would be difficult to find anything more cheerful than this Caprice... It is about the kindest, most harmless anger, similar to what one feels when one cannot take one's foot out of one's boot."

Marked allegro vivace, the rondo combines the traditional outline of the form with Beethoven's unique inventiveness for variations.

The rendition is by the brilliant Chinese-born pianist Yuja Wang. The piece lasts less than six minutes. 

F. Kalkbrenner, "aborted" Chopin's master

Musicologists aside, if any music lover today remembers Friedrich Kalkbrenner, it is for his inordinate claim to become the teacher of his namesake, Frédéric Chopin, when the latter showed up in Paris in 1831 and visited him to ask for tutoring. Maestro Kalkbrenner offered him three years of lessons. Chopin was enthusiastic, writing to his parents that "the best pianist in Europe" was going to take him under his wing and make him a great virtuoso. Frederic, a 21-year-old provincial boy, believed in his magic. It was not necessary. And the rapture was short-lived. After a year he gave up his lessons.

A talented pianist
Kalkbrenner certainly could play the piano and did so very well. He had given his first public concert at the age of five, in his native Germany. He soon came to study at the Paris Conservatory, where he graduated at thirteen. He lived in London for ten years, captivating the nobility of England with his prestissimo octaves and the passion he brought to specific passages. He caused a similar commotion in Paris, where he settled in 1824 as a virtuoso pianist and sought-after teacher. It was there that Chopin met him.

F; Kalkbrenner (1785 - 1849)

A composer too, but a forgotten one
Kalkbrenner composed everything: operas, sonatas, and piano concertos. But none of it has survived. It is highly unlikely that a single piece by the composer was heard in concert halls during the entire twentieth century. However, around the eighties, some enthusiasm was kindled in the record labels (the "rescue" fashion) and some of his music has been recorded ever since. At first, the short pieces, his Nocturnes, for example.

Lyricism for all tastes
Far removed from Chopin's Nocturnes (perhaps also from Field's), the works will nevertheless have moved the audiences of their time. He will be surpassed, on the piano, by far, by Chopin and Liszt. But Kalkbrenner would have cared little. Financially comfortable as a result of his successful career as a pianist and teacher, in his later years, he became a partner in the piano house Pleyel. Maestro Kalkbrenner would die rich.

Les Soupirs de la Harpe Eolienne

In a rendition by Dutch pianist Bart von Oort, presented here is the Nocturne in A flat major, opus 121 No 1, subtitled Les Soupirs de la Harpe Eolienne, recorded on an Erard piano of 1837.

Mozart, first trip to Italy / Divertimento in E-flat

Between 1769 and 1773, Mozart made three visits to Italy, accompanied by his father Leopold on all three occasions. The first trip was the most extensive. And also the most profitable if we only consider the number of commissions received by the young fourteen-year-old composer in the many cities they visited. They left Salzburg on December 13, 1769. After 15 months of sharing with the Italian nobility and the highest ecclesiastical dignitaries – for whom Wolfgang played the harpsichord and conducted orchestras –, father and son returned to Salzburg in March 1771, inebriated with Italian music and art.

Return to Milan
The successful tour soon reached the Imperial Palace in Vienna. And then it was decided to invite Wolfgang to write an opera to be performed in Milan in October 1771 to celebrate the betrothal of Archduke Ferdinand (son of Maria Theresa of Austria and brother of poor Marie Antoinette, who would later meet the guillotine) and Princess Beatrice of Modena. So a few months after returning home, the Mozart family had to leave again, this time for Milan, where they stayed for three months. The opera (Ascanio in Alba) was a resounding success, for Mozart was able to count on the best singers and the most outstanding instrumentalists who were delighted to take part in a work by the young Austrian genius.

The clarinet

Connected with those musicians, Mozart became aware of the preponderance in the Italian orchestras of an instrument that, apparently, the Austrian musicians did not recognize properly: the clarinet. And he set to work to correct the omission.

During his brief stay in Milan, Mozart composed two divertimenti in the style of the famous Italian divertimento. In both (in E-flat and B-flat), a pair of clarinets have outstanding participation, dialoguing, almost comically, with the English horns, the horns, or the bassoon.

Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 113
There are two versions of the work. One, dated Milan, November 1771, for two clarinets, two horns, and strings. The other, for wind ensemble only, excluding the clarinet, bears no date or place of composition. It is presumed that the first one obeys the Italian taste, written for the Milanese. The second is for his fellow countrymen since Mozart would not have had clarinets at his disposal in Salzburg. The discussion is ongoing. 

The first version is presented here, performed by the German C.P.E. Bach Orchestra, conducted by Hartmut Haenchen.

Movements:
0:00  Allegro
3:17  Andante
6:20  Menuetto
7:51  Trio - Allegro

Johann C. Bach, Sonata for two pianos

Johann Christian Bach was the youngest son of Johann Sebastian. After spending some time in Italy, he settled in London in 1764 having obtained the post of music master to Sophie Charlotte, the German duchess who had come to England to become queen consort to George III. They made a good match. At least they could chat in German when they felt like it. Johann Christian became so successfully integrated there that he was called "the Bach of London".

The new instrument

When he had the good fortune to meet Mozart (the opposite is not untrue), the piano had only recently been invented to replace the harpsichord for good. The story goes that it was the then 30-year-old Bach in London who introduced the little eight-year-old musician from Salzburg to the new instrument. After all, it was Johann Christian who had introduced the new instrument to London.

Johann Christian Bach
(1735 - 1782)

The society of his time

Johann Christian excelled in opera, the genre in which he achieved his greatest successes. And if he did not reach the heights of his father at the keyboard, it was not due to a lack of talent, but to the way in which his life as a musician took shape. Cuthbert Girdlestone, a modern British musicologist, puts it aptly:

"His public asks him for the music that amuses them..... His music is a succession of graceful and refined melodies. His allegros are pleasant, carefree. His andantes, tender and sometimes languid and idyllic, reflect the bucolic dream that enchanted the society of the eighties of the 18th century; his prestos are not lacking in vigor, but the whole is covered by a mask of smiling impersonality that expresses the superficial side of the society for which he wrote..."

Sonata for two pianos Opus 15 No 5

As was becoming customary, the writing for piano for four hands or two pianos responded to the demand for music for the family, intended to be performed at home, in the homes of an incipient middle class increasingly enthusiastic about art, particularly music.

Published in 1778, the sonata for two pianos in G major consists of only two Movements:

00:00  Allegro

06:20  Tempo di minuetto

The performance (audio only) is by the acclaimed duo of Bulgarian pianists Aglika Genova and Liuben Dimitrov. The imprint that JC Bach is going to leave on Mozart is obvious. So in all fairness it can also be said that in 1764 it was Mozart who was the lucky one.

Franz Schubert, Military March No. 1

Along with the "Serenade" and the "Ave Maria", Military March No. 1 is probably one of Franz Schubert's most famous melodies. Popularly known by the simple title "Schubert's military march", it is the first of the series of Three Military Marches for piano four hands published in 1826, as opus 51, by Anton Diabelli in Vienna.

They are assumed to have been written at Szeliz Castle, about 150 km from Vienna, where Schubert spent the summers of 1818 and 1819, engaged as a musical preceptor to the daughters of Count Johann Esterházy, cousin of Haydn's protector.

The girls, Carolina and Maria 

There were two girls: Carolina, 13 years old, and Maria, 15 years old. With Maria, the lessons were more interesting as she showed a more advanced level than her sister, but by the second summer, the little Schubert began to take a sentimental interest in Carolina, who, of course, was now fourteen. But his proverbial shyness did not allow him to go any further. Nevertheless, his letters of the time to his friends in Vienna are brimming with optimism: "I am perfectly alive and composing like a god [...]", he writes in one of them.

The four-hand piano

As the teacher of two sisters, the compositions – written like a God – that could be of most immediate benefit to him were, of course, the four-hand pieces. So the military marches must have been heard more than once in the palace, Schubert accompanying one of the girls or, perhaps, leaning back in an armchair, listening to his pupils with an attentive ear, ready to correct, although with his eyes fixed on Caroline, I suspect.

Military March No. 1

Countless arrangements and versions have been made of the Military March No. 1 (catalogued today as D.733, together with the other two marches). It has been used in multiple TV and film formats. Among the most serious rewritings, stand out for their importance, the Grand paraphrase de concert by Liszt, and the "quote" of Stravinski in Circus Polka (ballet choreographed for dancers and elephants).

Marked allegro vivace and written in the key of D major, the piece presents the traditional ternary structure A-B-A, its final section a frank repetition of the beginning. It lasts about 5 min.

Presented here is the original version for piano four hands by the pianist duo Salim & Sivan.

Liszt, Rondeau fantastique

We know Franz Liszt was the "inventor" of the piano recital. But, what does it mean really?
Well, in other words, he was the first pianist to perform alone on stage, playing all the "numbers" himself. It was 1840 and from then on "collective" concerts went down in history, which along with soloists could include ensembles of the most diverse instruments, as well as a couple of arias performed by the divas of the moment so as not to bore the audience with so much instrumental timbre.

The transcriptions
For this, the artist needed a vast repertoire. Hopefully, of well-known melodies. Then came the piano transcriptions of orchestral works, fantasies on opera themes, and variations on popular motifs.
Liszt, the mass artist of the 19th century, would play them all, always taking care to reserve as a grand finale a piece that would drive the ladies present even madder, ladies and young ladies who might come to blows for the handkerchief thrown to the audience by the charming twenty-nine-year-old artist.
A "bravura" fantasy on a famous Spanish air never failed him.

Rondeau fantastique sur un théme espagnol (A Fantastic Rondo on a Spanish Theme)
This is its original title. And the Spanish theme is the famous pole Yo que soy contrabandista, one of the musical numbers of El poeta calculista, a work by the tenor and composer Manuel García premiered in Madrid in 1805. Liszt composed the rondo in 1836, and was published the following year simultaneously in Leipzig, Milan, and Paris.

Three years earlier, Chopin had dedicated to Liszt the Etudes of Opus 10. He could have reciprocated with this dedication, but the Hungarian master must have considered that one thing was not compatible with the other. It is dedicated, then, to George Sand, who will become Chopin's "friend" only the following year.

The intricacies
Its technical difficulties are grandiose, and the number of pianists who have dared to record it, let alone perform it in public, can be counted on the fingers of one hand. The Russian concert pianist Mikhail Pletnev tried it, but ended up giving up when he saw that the piece was "untouchable," as he put it. Of course, it is also possible that the technical paraphernalia alone has failed to excite many performers of recognized virtuosity.

Courageous Valentina
There are live versions on Youtube in formal settings (Bruni, Howard), but we have preferred to show here the very informal performance, very democratic and far from any divism, that the Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa decided to offer in a London train station, on an upright piano somewhat out of tune and which apparently has a key that doesn't work. Bravo for the audacity.