Mozart, Symphony No 35, "Haffner"

The Mozart family had known the Haffner family for many years, ever since Sigmund Haffner, mayor of Salzburg, had supported the first European tours of the child prodigies Wolfgang and Nannerl. Years later, in 1776, the twenty-year-old Wolfgang thanked the prophetic gesture by writing a serenade for the marriage of one of Sigmund's daughters. Warmly received, the piece became famous as the Haffner Serenade. And that would have been the end of it, had it not been for the fact that in 1782 Sigmund Jr., a friend of Mozart's, was granted a noble title. Nothing better occurred to Leopold Mozart than asking his son, in Vienna at the time and about to marry, to compose a symphony to celebrate the ennoblement of Sigmund Haffner, Jr.

In mid-1782, Mozart was enjoying the success of his last opera, The Abduction from the Seraglio, and was busy writing an arrangement for a wind band "before someone else does it and takes my profits". He was also writing another serenade (in C minor for winds) and preparing for his marriage. He was very busy. But he accomplished everything. Or almost everything. Between July 20 and August 6, the maestro finished the arrangement, the serenade for winds, married Constanza, and sent her father the first movement of a Symphony, a movement that, apparently, arrived just in time for the celebration. The remaining movements arrived, one by one, in each mail.

Music for Lent
Six months later, Mozart was organizing a concert with his music for the Lenten days of 1783. Since the symphony intended for Haffner was probably known only in Salzburg, he asked his father to send him back the manuscripts. When he had them in hand, he wrote to him, "The new Haffner Symphony has pleasantly surprised me, because I had forgotten almost all the notes." However, the maestro decided to redesign the piece, which by then had six movements.

A new piece
He discarded one of the two minuets and the concluding march, then added a pair of flutes and a pair of clarinets to the first and fourth movements, and offered the Viennese a new piece on March 23, 1783, at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

The premiere
Under the leadership of the author, it turned out to be a great success. Wolfgang told his father:

"The theater could not have been more crowded and.... every seat was taken. But what pleased me most of all was that His Majesty the Emperor was present and, heavens! - How delighted he was and how he applauded me! He is in the habit of sending the money to the theater before he arrives. Otherwise, I would have been counting a larger amount. But his rejoicing exceeded all bounds. He sent 25 ducats."

A Hamburg magazine reviewed the concert, noting that the emperor, against his custom, "had attended the entire concert, as had the entire audience." ... The customs of those years.

A rather curious program
As was also the custom, the program of the evening seems to us today somewhat curious, to say the least. It began with the first three movements of the symphony. It was followed by arias, "scenes" from operas, a couple of movements from recent serenades, a piano concerto (K 175), variations on arias; Aloysia Weber (now Lange), Wolfgang's former love, sang one of his rondos, and then Wolfgang improvised a fugue, "because the emperor was present". In the end, the fourth movement of the Haffner Symphony was played. Finally. 

Following are the four movements, one after the other, in just under 20 minutes.

Symphony No. 35 in D major, K 385, "Haffner" - Movements
00:00  Allegro con spirito - Must be played fiercely, Wolfgang pointed out.
05:38  Andante - A respite, after the spirited allegro, soft and beautiful melodies.
10:08  Menuetto - Brilliant change of atmosphere.
13:10  Presto - As fiery as the first, it should be played as fast as possible, the composer pointed out.

The Orchestra of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, Rome, under the baton of the British conductor and pianist Sir Antonio Pappano.

Louis Spohr, Fantasy for harp, in C minor

In 1805, at twenty-one, the German violin virtuoso Louis Spohr became music director at the court of Gotha, a small town in central Germany. Soon after arriving, he heard a beautiful eighteen-year-old harpist girl, Dorette Scheidler, daughter of a court singer, play "a very demanding fantasia". Louis immediately decided to write a sonata for her, for harp and violin. The work presented some demands, so its preparation required many rehearsals. They ended up in love and married in February 1806.

That same year they began, as a duo, extensive tours of cities in the rest of Europe, to which they returned every year until 1822, when Dorette, a woman of her time, decided to abandon the tours, the duo and the harp, to be with her children who, now grown up, could not accompany the couple on their endless tours. But they were happy until Dorette's death 28 years later.

Violinist and conductor
Louis Spohr was also a fine painter and skilled chess player born in northern Germany in 1784. He showed an early talent for the violin. At 15, was already a member of the duke's orchestra in his hometown. He remained in Gotha until 1812. Later, he would be a prominent violinist and conductor at the courts of several German and Austrian cities until shortly before he died in Kassel in 1859

Louis Spohr (1784 - 1859)
Self-portrait

The works
Little of his music survives today in the standard repertoire, although the composer has to his credit about 300 works, covering all genres, including opera. He wrote nine symphonies (let us say, by the way, that he was a friend of Beethoven), eight violin concertos, four clarinet concertos, and extensive chamber music. Among the miscellaneous works, the pieces written for harp stand out, most of them composed in the first half of the author's career.

Fantasy for harp, in C minor
It was composed in 1807, while the author was at the court of Gotha, a year after marrying Dorette and, we suppose, to feed his wife's solo repertoire.

A little classical gem of ten minutes duration.

The performance is by German artist Serafina Jaffe, born in Berlin in 1998. The location is the Lichtenau Palace in Potsdam.

According to her own account, the video results from her participation in the German competition "Jugend Musiziert", where she won first prize.

Chopin Impromptus - Impromptu No 3

 
Four impromptus Chopin wrote during his lifetime. The most famous by far is No. 4, with which Julian Fontana – Chopin's friend, colleague, and factotum – took two liberties: he called it Fantasie Impromptu and published it posthumously, disregarding the will of the Polish master, who at the time did not consider it worthy of publication. Let us note, by the way, that it bears the No. 4 precisely because of its posthumous publication, but it was the first that Chopin tackled, almost recently arrived in Paris in 1834, initiating with it the series of four.

Chopin would write three more in the following years, which would soon be published, dedicated to some countess, except the second, which simply does not bear a dedication. Curiously, none of them will come even remotely close to the later popularity of the Fantasia Impromptu. However, they are as perfectly accomplished pieces as it. (Let us speculate that Julian Fontana will have thought the same of it but in reverse). Especially Impromptus No 3, which, in the opinion of scholars, is the most perfect piece of the four.

Improvisations?
Etymologically, yes. The term was of recent appearance, not before 1817, in the works of Kalkbrenner, or Schubert. They are improvisations, at first, but then painstakingly worked out, although, as the musicologist and pianist Alfred Cortot rightly pointed out, "the music must seem to be born from the performer's hands". Ultimately, then, in an impromptu, the performer must "improvise" if not the notes, then the emotional content.
Their form is simple. They respond to the A-B-A scheme, a central theme flanked by two similar episodes, perhaps twins if it were not for the essential coda in the repetition.

Impromptu No 3, in G-flat major, opus 51
It is the last one he wrote, of course. It was composed in 1842 and published in February of the following year, with a dedication to Countess Esterházy, a pupil of the master, one of the many highborn pupils that George Sand used to call his "magnificent countesses."
Although without any concession to gratuitous virtuosity, the first section is marked vivace giusto, lively and light but without rubatos. In the opinion of scholars, this is music "shaken with confessions, filled with impulses and intoxicating ecstasy." Double notes characterize the right hand's eagerness in the second section.

The brilliant performance is by the American pianist Kate Liu, born in Singapore in 1994.

A. Stradella, a stabbed-to-death composer. "Symphony" No 7

Alessandro Stradella, an outstanding composer of the Italian Baroque of the mid-17th century, is one of the earliest members of the ominous elite of musicians who did not live to be forty years old. In his case, he also added a quota of "sensationalism" to his early death. His career today appears dazzling and avant-garde, and he is considered a leading figure of his generation and one of the most versatile composers of the time. Precursor of the concerto grosso and with more than three hundred works to his credit, including oratorios, cantatas, operas, and a variety of instrumental music, it is surprising that he could have achieved such great success while leading an unholy life, dodging the persecution of deceitful noble husbands and escaping justice through untimely trips to end up stabbed to death in a square in Genoa.

Born in Rome, probably in 1644, into a noble family, by the age of twenty he had already made a name for himself as a composer of works at the request of Queen Christina of Sweden (at the time, serving in Rome). He was later joined by other Roman noblemen for whom Stradella provided motets, preludes, and intermezzi. He never needed music to survive, nor any other trade. However, in 1669 he tried unsuccessfully to defraud the Catholic Church in collusion with a fellow violinist and the abbot of a monastery. He had to leave Rome in haste. But the following year was back, fully dedicated to the composition of sacred music.

Alejandro Stradella (1644 - 1682)

An elusive life
Several setbacks with the Roman Church led him to leave Rome, this time compulsively, in 1677. He decided to settle in Venice, where he was hired as a musical tutor to the mistress of a wealthy nobleman named Contarini. It did not take Stradella long to seduce the mistress and escape with her. The powerful Contarini family put a price on his head. After saving his life from an assault, the composer left Venice and settled in Genoa.

The end
There he enjoyed the regular presentation of his works in the Genoese theaters and seemed to have settled down, in the company of a noble maiden. But a series of scandalous infidelities unleashed the wrath of the Lomellini family, the maiden's cradle. On February 25, 1682, Stradella was stabbed to death in Piazza Banchi by a henchman of the Lomellini family. Despite his singular trajectory, the master's remains rest in a Catholic basilica in Genoa.

Symphony No. 7 in G major
Let us note that Stradella's "symphonies" (and those of the other baroque composers of his time) have little to do with the concept we use today, that is, the one that designates a great work in three or four movements for a large orchestra. In the Baroque period, the word symphony simply designated any type of music that required a variable number of instruments. Responding to the secular ambiguity of musical terms, it could also have been called, simply, sonata, or, better still, "sonata for orchestra".

The piece, just over four minutes long, is written for two violins, cello, and organ or harpsichord (the basso continuo), and is part of the thirty or so instrumental works composed by the author.

The performance is by the Italian Ensemble Giardino di Delizie, formed by four ladies, two of them Italian and two Polish.

Joseph Haydn´s trips to London / "London" Symphony

Of the 104 symphonies definitely written by Joseph Haydn, twelve were composed in London, but only the last of them will be known as the "London" Symphony. The work also turned out to be the symphony with which he ended all his production in the genre.

The maestro visited the island twice. The first time, in 1791, was invited by the German violinist and conductor Johann Peter Salomon, who had settled in London ten years earlier and had since become a successful music entrepreneur. Salomon was on the continent when he learned of the death of Haydn's patron, Prince Nicholas Esterházy, and the prince's son's lack of interest in maintaining the family's musical tradition. Without missing a second, Salomon left for Vienna. On a visit to the master's house, he told him all about London.

First trip: 1791 - 1792
On New Year's Day, January 1, 1791, Haydn landed at Dover. It was the first time he had set foot on foreign soil. Salomon was right: the maestro could not refuse his offer. The impresario offered a thousand pounds for an opera, six symphonies, and a couple of miscellaneous pieces, guaranteeing two hundred more for a benefit concert. The maestro remained in England for a year and a half, reaping successes and receiving tributes. He heard his music performed everywhere. He was invited to the Queen's birthday ball. The University of Oxford named him doctor honoris causa.

Second trip: 1794 - 1795
In July 1792, he returned to Vienna. He gave a few brief lessons to 21-year-old Ludwig van Beethoven, but the relationship was not one of the best. Neither his marriage nor his fourteen-year relationship with the singer Luigia Polzelli was going well. So he was delighted to receive Salomon's proposal to return to London.
The maestro left Vienna on January 19, 1794, and remained in London for another year and a half. During the visit, due to the war against France, Salomon was confronted with some serious difficulties. He was replaced by the violinist and impresario Giovanni Battista Viotti. He had the honor of organizing the premiere of Haydn's last three symphonies: the ones that today take the numbers 102, 103, and 104.

Symphony No. 104, in D major, called "London"
It premiered at the King's Theatre on May 4, 1795. The program featured exclusively music by Haydn, including Symphony No. 100, also called "Military," which had become the biggest London hit of his second visit. "The people were very pleased, and so was I," Haydn noted in his diary, adding, "I earned 4,000 gulden that night. Such a thing only happens in England."

Movements
They are the traditional four. If we discount their dramatic beginning, they are developed following the typical sequence: fast - slow - fast, with the minuet/trio inserted before the closing movement. The andante presents a simple theme that, after its development, becomes moving. The minuet is lively, with amusing syncopations; the trio is sweetly lyrical. For the Finale, the maestro turns to folklore: the main melody is a Croatian song probably once heard in Eisenstadt, where the Esterházy family had their winter palace.

00:00  Adagio - Allegro
09:42  Andante
16:53  Menuetto. Allegro - Trio
21:56  Finale. Spiritoso

The performance is by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the Dutch maestro Bernard Haitink.

Chausson, Poem for Violin and orchestra

The French composer Ernest Chausson was born lucky, but died unlucky. He was the son who survived the early death of his two brothers, a tragedy that does not count, of course, in the inventory of his good fortune. But from those specific events, he became the spoiled son, the "apple of his eye" of his beleaguered but very wealthy parents. His father, called Prosper because fate is perspicacious, was a renowned public works contractor who was there, in Paris, at the time of the Second Empire, when Napoleon III had the idea of redrawing the City of Light, remodeling its buildings, avenues, parks, and gardens.

And so Ernest never needed to work a day in his life. Possessing, since childhood, diverse talents for painting, philosophy, or literature, as a teenager he added music to his vast wealth of interests. When he finally decided on musical composition as a life project, his parents applied the indispensable correction in these cases: they sent him to the university to study law. The young Chausson was sworn in as a lawyer in 1877. But that same year he changed course. The most notable achievement of that year would not be his oath but the composition of his first song, Les Lilas.

Ernst Chausson (1855 - 1899)

At Paris Conservatory
Chausson will never practice the profession. Two years later, in 1879, when he was 24 years old, the lawyer entered the Paris Conservatory to study composition with master Jules Massenet. Later, integrated into the circle that surrounded César Franck, he was encouraged to compose music despite his very late musical initiation.

His lyricism 
He was not a virtuoso composer, but an innate lyricism helped him overcome his technical limitations. With all the time in the world to mature his compositions without being disturbed by any extra-musical occupation, Chausson wrote songs, choral music, some operas, and chamber music. Today he is remembered mainly for two imaginative orchestral works: a Symphony, and the Poem for Violin and Orchestra, from 1896.

The fateful end
He lived in Paris with his wife all his lifetime but every summer the couple would take off to the provinces. In the summer of 1899, while riding a bicycle, he lost control of the vehicle and crashed his head against a wall. He died on the spot.
His funeral was attended by the most conspicuous personalities of French music and arts.

Poem for violin and orchestra, op. 25
Chausson hardly had any reason to be sad during his lifetime. However, much of his music exudes an undeniable melancholy. The Poem for Violin does not evade it, during its 17 minutes of beautiful nostalgia, or "spleen", to use the word Baudelaire invented during those years.

Premiere 
Composed between April and June 1896, the work had its public premiere on December 27 of that year, with the participation as soloist of the Belgian master Eugène Ysaÿe, to whom it is dedicated and who would have been its applicant.

Janine Jansen, and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Johannes Gustavsson.

Mozart, Sonata for Two Pianos in D Major

The first sonatas for piano four hands or for two pianos composed by Mozart were intended to be performed together by him and his sister Nannerl, five years older. With them they toured most of Europe between 1763 and 1766, dazzling with their prodigious virtuosity every prince and noblewoman who had the opportunity to listen to them. The august audience entertained them with kisses and from time to time with a gift, once a watch, another time a gala dress, like the one Mozart as a child, wears in the picture below, a gift from the Empress Maria Teresa of Austria.

Settled in Vienna
In 1781 Maria Theresa was no longer in this world and Mozart had long since ceased to be a child prodigy. He was 25 years old and had long since stopped "rolling around the world like a beggar," in Maria Theresa's not very restrained words ten years earlier.
And he had settled in Vienna, after his patron, Prince-Archbishop Colloredo, had removed him from his position at the irrelevant court of Salzburg, following a bitter dispute a few months earlier.

As a free-lance pianist and composer, he obtains in Vienna his first "considerable success" with the opera Idomeneo. He falls in love with Konstance and plans to marry. Mozart, hunter and gatherer, gets some pupils and prepares and produces concerts in which he presents his own works, but his talented sister is no longer there to accompany him. Nannerl leads a simple life in Salzburg, cared for by her father Leopold, somewhat oblivious to her art.

Sonata for two pianos in D major, K. 448
Premiered in November 1781, it was composed for the occasion and performed in the company of fellow pianist Josephine von Aurnhammer, with whom he had already duetted in the Concerto for two pianos of 1779.
Written in gallant style, luminous and brilliant, it is in the three "classical" movements:

00        Allegro con spirito
08:00  Andante
18:01  Molto allegro

The Mozart Effect
The sonata was part of a scientific study aimed at testing the theory of the Mozart Effect, which postulates that classical music increases brain activity more than any other type of music. The research continues.

The rendition is by Russian pianists Anatalia Injushina and Vlatseslav Novikov, in a performance at Helsinki's brand new Temppeliaukio Lutheran stone church, inaugurated in 1969.

Scriabin Études - Étude Opus 2 No 1

The Russian composer Alexander Scriabin is part of the long list of talented composers who left this world at an early age without seeing their most daring projects come to fruition."Mysterium" was the name of his last work, a piece of grandiose characteristics that would last a whole week, destined to be premiered in the foothills of the Himalayas, incorporating the senses of sight, sound, smell, and touch. After the premiere – the author believed – the world would end, vanishing amid great joy, giving way to a new human race composed of nobler beings.
Impossible to say that Scriabin did not aim high. But fate was not with him. Alexander Scriabin died in Moscow at 43 from septicemia caused by a mosquito bite.

Alexander Scriabin (1872 - 1915)

A piano virtuoso
Simultaneously with his mystical stage, the author also flirted with dodecaphony at the end of his life. But in his beginnings, as a piano virtuoso, he was influenced by the romantic pianists of the first half of the 19th century. It is a period in which he wrote mainly for the piano, working in the genres that Chopin used without rest: preludes, nocturnes, and studies written in an openly tonal language. Unusual textures and harmonies will come later.

He also wrote sonatas and a Piano Concerto but is today remembered mainly for his earliest works, which today turn out to be essential pieces of the piano repertoire, among them the 24 Preludes of Opus 11, brimming with lyricism and poetry.
Also noteworthy for their precocity are the Three Pieces of Opus 2, a set of three Etudes written in the period 1887-1889, the first of them when the author was fifteen years old, at a time when, of course, he was a fervent admirer of Chopin and Liszt.

Etude Opus 2 No 1, in C sharp minor
The influence of the Polish musician is undeniable here. Moreover, it is not difficult to guess Chopin's Etude which is inspired by: No. 7 of Etudes Opus 25, those dedicated to Marie d'Agoult, Liszt's partner at the time.

The harmonies are "Chopinian" and so is the emotional tone of the piece. However, the melody brings to mind, characteristically, Russian gypsy music, for its exoticism, somewhat melancholic. It is a slow and rather somber piece, yet, in its scarce three minutes of length, it presents the interpreter with no few difficulties while offering the listener an undeniable attraction.

The performance is by the Russian master Vladimir Horowitz.

Franz Liszt, "Les Preludes", symphonic poem

Although it is customary to point to Franz Liszt as the inventor of the symphonic poem, the term is not of his authorship, and it seems to be born almost unthinkingly. While in Weimar (1842-61), the master wrote twelve works in this genre, in the company of his writer Princess Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who collaborated with the texts that usually accompanied them.

The third of these, called "The Preludes", was the first to bear the title "symphonic poem", although, in a letter to one of his publishers, dated February 1854, Liszt presents the work simply as "one of my new orchestral works: the Preludes".

A new genre
Two days later, however, a Weimar newspaper announced the work's premiere with the words: "Les preludes - symphonische Dichtung" (Dichtung = poem). Thus was born a new genre, the symphonic poem, which will have exalted continuers of the stature of Smetana, Dvorak, or Richard Strauss.

Considered the seed of the "programmatic music" of the 19th century, it is defined, in general terms, as a musical form in which a literary or other source provides the narrative basis for a single-movement orchestral work. Liszt's symphonic poems, in particular, are intended to inspire the listener to evoke scenes, images, or moods.

Liszt, in 1856
(1811 - 1886)

Lamartine Preludes
In the case of The Preludes, the most popular of them, the maestro "reconditioned" musical materials he already had, organizing them in such a way that they would tell a certain story, that would contain some kind of plot. It was not easy.
But he found the solution in a poem by Lamartine, precisely called The Preludes.
Now, the precise connection between Lamartine's poem and Liszt's music is rather vague, apart from the fact that both works mix, compare, or contrast, elements of idyll and stark reality. The work contains four sections that focus, successively, on love, war, country life, and fate.

Liszt's words
And since it was a matter of beginning the path of programmatic music, Liszt added to the premiere program a long text that begins with these words:

"What is our life but a series of preludes to an unknown song, of which the first solemn note is the one that sounds death?"

The text continues, wearily romantic, with references to love, fate, and death here and there. The audience who attended the premiere, on February 23, 1854, in Weimar, went home convinced that they had been given pieces of Lamartine's prose. Today, they are believed to have originated in the boundless stylistic loquacity of Carolyne, the princess writer.

Some pieces of the work have become part of popular culture. The most recognizable makes its first appearance at minute 2:35.

Daniel Barenboim conducts Berlin Philharmoniker - Staatsoper Berlin.

Beethoven, Symphony No. 8, in F major

The year 1812 marked the end of Napoleon's glory and the beginning of his downfall. After a dazzling invasion, he defeated the Russians and reached Moscow, but the victory was short-lived. He could not cope with the military technique of "scorched earth". After setting fire to Moscow, the Russians sat back and waited (that's putting it mildly) for Napoleon to retreat. During the retreat, the powerful Napoleonic army was annihilated at Vilna.

Beethoven meets Goethe
While the beginning of the end was brewing for his once idol, Beethoven traveled to Teplice to meet another model, the revered and great poet Goethe. He was invited. It was not an invasion. But the results were, in turn, also disastrous. Beethoven met, in his opinion, an aging courtier who was neither a fellow democrat nor even less an agitator, perhaps a dilettante. The poet, for his part, while impressed by Beethoven's personality, intensely disliked his coarse manners. It was all a great disappointment. However, it didn't stop the coarse-mannered maestro from sketching the first sketches of Symphony No. 8, just there, in Teplice.

Symphony No. 8, in F major, Op. 93
He completed it in Linz in the autumn of the same year. It was written "simultaneously" with Symphony No. 7, that is, when he started to write it he had already begun the Seventh, which was left for later. It seems that the Eighth functioned as an escape valve for the compositional problems presented by the Seventh. Scholars agree that the writing of the Eighth Symphony was for the maestro a task without difficulties, almost a divertimento, which would have been reflected in a pristine way in the general character of the work.

A " light-hearted" work
Indeed, compared to the Third, the Fifth, and certainly the Seventh, Symphony No. 8 has been called "benign," or "harmless," by acerbic critics. Others have jokingly described it as "Haydn's last symphony".
The truth is that Beethoven adopted this time a jovial, carefree scheme. He dispensed with the slow tempo and instead wrote two scherzos, the first of them a parody of the musical chronometer, of recent appearance, the device we know today as a metronome. And if it is a question of making comparisons, it is fair to say that not since Haydn's time had a more amusing resolution to a symphony been written than that offered by the allegro vivace with which the work ends.

The end
But as we can't always have rain on everyone's parade, a critical article of 1827 pointed out that the work depended "entirely on the final movement, destined to get applause at any cost; the rest is eccentric without entertaining, and laborious without any results."
Bad timing for such bitter criticism: the maestro died that same year.

Premiere
The work, without a dedication, and less than half an hour long, had its premiere on February 27, 1814, at the Redoutensaal, in Vienna, with Beethoven conducting. Audience impressions were not very enthusiastic either: the program included the Seventh as a poster work.
Sir George Grove, founder of the dictionary that to this day bears his name, recounted:

'It was not well received. Much more applauded was the Seventh, which puzzled Beethoven. But he took it philosophically: "That's because it's so much better than the other one," he observed.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro vivace e con brio
10:50  Allegretto scherzando
15:02  Tempo di menuetto
20:14  Allegro vivace

Daniel Barenboim conducts the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra – a conductor's creation, made up of Palestinian, Arab, and Israeli musicians – during the 2012 BBC Proms.

Dmitri Shostakovich, "Festive Overture"

Unlike Sergei Prokofiev, who had the misfortune of dying on the same day as Stalin (March 5, 1953), thus causing his funeral to pass into the background, Dmitri Shostakovich survived the great Soviet leader for over twenty years. During that period, Soviet cultural life underwent significant changes, which could be appreciated a few months after the great leader's death.

Dmitri, who, along with Sergei, had headed the sadly famous list of composers who had gone astray, witnessed the new airs when in December 1953, he was asked to compose a short work in commemoration of the next anniversary of the Bolshevik revolution. He called it "Festive Overture"... so much so that the composer allowed himself to include in it a tune taken from the Opera that in 1932 had brought him the first reprimand.

 Legend has it that the master would have composed it with astonishing speed. Mythical versions of the time taken range from a few hours to three days.
What is unquestionable is that the new cultural era favored a fresh look at works that Shostakovich had abandoned due to the uncertainty surrounding their composition and subsequent reception. The maestro took them up again with the serious intention of finishing them. That is what he was doing when he received the commission. It is possible, therefore, that, in those circumstances, he devoted no more than three days to the brief work that greeted the revolution.

Festive Overture, for orchestra, in A Major, opus 96
Curiously, this is a traditional, if not conservative, work. In its scant six minutes long it brims with a joyful mood, without majestic boasts or pomp. The piece opens with a jaunty fanfare. It is followed by a lively section based on a melody from the already mentioned 1932 opera, which picks up speed. The somewhat grandiloquent finale shows that Shostakovich took no chances here. He was right, in over ten years, when it comes to a new symphony, the authorities will be wrinkling their noses again.

hr-Sinfonieorchester – Frankfurt Radio Symphony / Pablo Heras-Casado, Dirigent.

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Chopin, Étude No 7 from Opus 25

The twelve Etudes of Opus 25 were composed by Frédéric Chopin between 1832 and 1836. Published in 1837, six years after having settled in Paris, they added one more achievement in the production of the author, by then "the artist of the moment", of the Parisian soirées. They were his second collection of studies for piano. The first, opus 10, had been published in 1833, dedicated to "mon ami, Franz Liszt", a distinction that could surprise no one since both knew each other and professed mutual admiration.

Marie d'Agoult, dedicatée
Four years later, opus 25 was dedicated to Marie d'Agoult, a former countess, talented writer, and salon habitué whose closeness to Chopin and his music was reduced to her status as Franz Liszt's partner. An act of courtesy that surprises us to this day. Even more so, when we learn that Marie did not get along with Frédéric. That same year, 1837, the Sand proposed to Marie that she join Nohant in the company of "the Poles" (Chopin and his poet friends). In response, Marie wrote: "...Chopin, an oyster sprinkled with sugar..." ... "In him, only his cough is permanent."
Another enigma, in the unfathomable personality of the master.

Marie d'Agoult (1805 - 1876)

Etude Opus 25 No 7, in C sharp minor
A beautiful melody, somewhat sad, accompanied by slow chords of both hands. The left hand, in a couple of passages, attacks semiquavers at a certain speed, but, nothing comparable to the extensive and fast run, also in semiquavers, required in other Etudes, the so-called "Revolutionary", for example. It could be said, then, that this is a rather simple Etude. The difficulty, however, lies elsewhere.

The melody advances shared by both hands. Sometimes on the left, other times on the right. To sing the melody properly, the interpreter must fully understand what is happening with it, musically speaking. And to this painful singing, extreme delicacy must be added. Mastery in phrasing is the demand of the one who was called the poet of the piano.

The Etude is the most extensive of the twenty-four. It is not a study of technique as such, or of acrobatic skills, if the term fits, but one of musicality and interpretation. This is what the work demands, which in less than six minutes, unveils one of Chopin's most emotional pages.

The marvelous performance is by the Polish pianist Szymon Nehring.

Friedrich Kuhlau, Sonatina in C major

At the beginning of the 19th century, the young German pianist and composer Friedrich Kuhlau began to perform regularly in public, being applauded by a pleasantly surprised audience since, as a result of his copious works for flute, everyone believed he was a flutist. To such an extent that he was even called "the Beethoven of the flute." The truth is that Kuhlau didn't know how to play the instrument, and if he wrote for it, it was exclusively due to economic reasons: a market requirement.

An author of a good number of operas, nowadays the author is remembered mainly for his piano works. In addition to a Concerto, a series of sonatinas written for pedagogical purposes stand out, whose study today no future pianist can neglect, as they constitute an indispensable exercise before the approach of the sonatas of the great masters.

Friedrich Kulhau, in 1828
(1786 - 1832)

A Beethoven's friend
Born south of Lüneburg, Germany, at age twenty, he fled with his family to Copenhagen to avoid being recruited by the Napoleonic army. There, he introduced the Danes to the work of Beethoven, whom he admired. Later he had the good fortune to meet him, in 1825, during a trip to Vienna. It is said that they were great friends. Apparently, the admiration was mutual. It is said that both attended, as good friends, a somewhat scandalous party at which, in the heat of the champagne, they exchanged sparkling canons composed about their surnames. Some add that Beethoven, the next day, remembered nothing.

Sonatas or sonatinas?
Literally, a sonatina is a small sonata. More than a musical form, the word is a title the author has had at hand to designate a piece in sonata form but shorter and lighter, or technically less demanding, than a typical sonata.
The beautiful sonatinas of Muzio Clementi's opus 36 fully comply with this characterization. But this is only sometimes the case. There are sonatinas with demands no less severe. For example, Ravel's Sonatina or Alkan's Sonatina. And of course, Beethoven's "easy sonatas", from Opus 49, with medium difficulty, but difficulty nonetheless.

Kuhlau - Sonatina No. 4 in C major, Op.55 No 1
Composed in 1823, Kuhlau's Opus 55 contains six sonatinas. All of them are short, in two or three movements, averaging five minutes in length. Their first movements have a very brief or non-existent development section. The one we are listening to has only two movements, both lively.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro
02:49  Vivace

The rendition is by the Osaka-born master in 1934, Mitsuru Nagai.

Ligeti: "Lux Aeterna", for a mixed chorus, 16 voices a capella

 
In 1964, filmmaker Stanley Kubrick set his sights on making a film that would explore man's relationship with the Universe. Four years later, "2001: A Space Odyssey" was released to mixed reviews: "Monumentally unimaginative," wrote one critic. Another, on the other hand, noted that it was "a magnificent success on a cosmic scale." With some derision, a third noted: a work "somewhere between hypnotic and dull." Today, fifty years after its premiere, critics agree with the popular opinion of its time: a work of genius.

In this popular enchantment, the soundtrack played a very prominent role. At first, Kubrick opted for original music, but halfway through opted for pre-existing music: some very well-known, some known in certain circles, and some completely unknown. To this last category belongs the work Lux Aeterna, incorporated by Kubrick into the soundtrack without asking permission from the author, the Hungarian composer György Ligeti.

Kubrick incorporated no more and no less than four works by Ligeti into the film without canceling rights. Ligeti learned of this through a friend who suggested he go to see the movie with a stopwatch. He found that a good half hour of the film contained his music. But he didn't make a fuss. He simply sued the filmmaker, demanding compensation for one dollar. We ignore how the conflict ended. We only hope that in their subsequent work together (The Shining, Eyes Wide Shut) Kubrick had learned to behave.

György Ligeti (1923 - 2006)

Born in Hungary in 1923, a survivor of concentration camps, Ligeti was part of the great Hungarian exodus of 1956, settling in Germany where he was able to soak up the burgeoning development of contemporary music. He quickly joined the avant-garde, and soon began to produce works captivating for their boldness and complexity, often within very free rhythmic frameworks.
From 1960 onwards, the warm reception to several of his works transformed him into one of the prominent authors of the European avant-garde. After all, then, Ligeti was not so unknown when Kubrick took the liberty of borrowing his works without permission.

Lux Aeterna, for a mixed choir

This mysterious and rather gloomy but very beautiful work is written for a mixed choir of 16 voices a cappella, that is to say, without accompaniment. The words, in Latin, are taken from the traditional Requiem Mass of the Catholic liturgy. Composed in 1966 using the technique known as "sound mass", introduced by Ligeti in the sixties, it results in a body of sound that dispenses with rhythm and melody, using harmony to produce variations of vocal timbres in time.

At just over eight minutes long, it seems to suggest, with its whispering texture, a universal presence capable of permeating everything. This is what the voices emanating from the monolith, in the famous scene of Kubrick's film, arouse.

The rendition is by the Taipei Chamber Singers, conducted by its director Chen Yun-Hung.

Chopin, Polonaise - Fantaisie in A-flat

Throughout his life, Chopin wrote at least twenty-seven polonaises, the first of which was when he was only seven. The last was in 1846, three years before his early death at age 39. And we count "at least" 27 because at least seven polonaises have been lost; they appear in his correspondence to publishers, pupils, or friends but have not come down to us.
He called Polonaise-Fantasie the last one, for lack of a better title. So he confesses in a letter of 1845 to his Polish family, pointing out his "difficulty in finding the title of a new composition." These were only some of the difficulties. Family harmonies are fading, and so is love. He will spend that summer in Nohant, and it will be his last.

The difficulties are domestic but no less burdensome. The Sand children are no longer children. Maurice is twenty years old and Solange is fifteen. Both are entering life as difficult teenagers. Chopin does not take sides, for now. Rather, he is bored:

"The whole summer was spent here in walks and excursions in the region.... As far as I am concerned, I did not take part, because I would have found more fatigue than pleasure in it. I am tired, I am bored. My character suffers because of it and the young people experience no pleasure in my company."

Nevertheless, that year of 1846 proved to be prodigal. The three mazurkas of Opus 59, the sonata for cello and piano, the Barcarolle, and the Polonaise-Fantaisie, which had probably been outlined the previous year, were completed.

As mentioned, this "new composition" is preceded by at least twenty-six polonaises. There are brilliant, heroic, military, and tragic ones. But this time it took a lot of work for Chopin to find a suitable title or subtitle. And the question arises: why didn't he simply call it Polonaise. There was a reason. The work was far more than a familiar polonaise and, curiously, also something less.

Polonaise-Fantaisie for piano No. 7, in A-flat major, opus 61
It is one of Chopin's most important works and one of the most complex harmonic writing so only in the twentieth century the work began to be favored by audiences, critics, and performers.
In the opinion of scholars, the new composition seems more like a fantasy than a polonaise (with which Chopin, hesitantly, would have finally hit the nail on the head), a sort of melancholic reverie that, despite the atmosphere, manages to maintain the rhythmic characteristics of the traditional dance, albeit at times.
A long improvisatory introduction, marked allegro maestoso, leads into the thematic material proper.
Lasting a little more than twelve minutes, it was published that same year 1846, with a dedication to a student, Mme. Veyret, the wife of the honorary consul of Ecuador.

The rendition is by the brilliant pianist Kate Liu – born in Singapore – during her presentation at the International Chopin Competition in Warsaw, in 2015, when she was awarded the Third Prize.

Mozart, and the indelicate words by Maria Theresa / Piano Concerto No 1

 
Following the custom of the time, the first four piano concertos Mozart wrote are arrangements for keyboard and orchestra of movements from sonatas by other composers. They were called "pastiches". The first foray into composing for keyboard and orchestra – in the "pastiche" mode, of course – was made by Mozart in the summer of 1767 when he was only eleven years old. The family was back in Salzburg after their second European tour, which lasted three years.

Five years earlier, they had made their first tour. They visited Vienna, and Wolfgang and his sister Nannerl, four years older, had the opportunity to play at Schönbrunn Palace before Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. The Empress greeted them effusively and presented them with the gala costumes in which the children were later portrayed in paintings that are now famous.

Wolfgang Amadeus, age seven,
wearing the finery given by Maria Theresa 

But time went by, and nine years later, Maria Theresa would have some indelicate words for the Mozart family. In 1771, Mozart was in Florence in the company of his father Leopold, obeying a commission for a short opera in two acts in celebration of the wedding of Archduke Ferdinand, governor of Lombardy. Ferdinand praised the work with a celebrated "bravissimo, maestro".Leopold was enthusiastic and tried to place his son in the archduke's service.
The Archduke consulted with his mother, Maria Theresa of Austria. Maria Theresa responded by advising against the engagement: "...if they [the Mozart] are in your service they will degrade it by going about the world like beggars".By this time, Mozart the beggar had added thirteen symphonies to his four piano concertos from his boyhood days.

Concerto No. 1, K 37, in F major
Compared to his later concertos (at least, from No. 6 onwards), the first four concertos appear as "light", even somewhat naive works. But let's remember that the composer is eleven years old and, perhaps, he is just practicing writing for piano and orchestra.

Movements
Of course, there are three, in the Vivaldi style: fast - slow - fast.
01:28 Allegro (based on the opening allegro of a sonata for violin and piano by H.F. Raupach)
07:35 Andante (of unknown provenance, some scholars believe it belongs to Mozart)
13:25 Allegro (based on the first movement of a sonata by L. Honauer)

The performance is by the great Russian maestro Sviatoslav Richter, accompanied by the Japan Shinsei Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Russian conductor Rudolf Barshai.

Aram Khachaturian, Violin Concerto

In 1937, three years after graduating from the Moscow Conservatory, the composer Aram Khachaturian joined the Union of Soviet Composers, created by Stalin five years earlier. The composer, one of the leading composers of his generation, was elected two years later to a leading position of some importance. But this did not prevent him from completing that year the Violin Concerto that would earn him an award, the Lenin Prize.
The illustrious distinction, however, will not be an obstacle for the composer to be accused, ten years later, together with Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and other prominent authors, of writing music contrary to the interests of the Soviet people.

Indeed, in 1948, Khachaturian was blacklisted by Commissar Andrei Zhdanov, along with the composers already named, accused of "formalism", "modernism" and other deviations from "proletarian" conduct. Naturally, Khachaturian had no alternative but to "repent", by confessing his "mistakes" in a humble apology. However, his music remained the same, unchanged. Apparently, rather than his music, the Politburo was concerned about his participation in the Composers' Union, considered by that time a bastion of incorrect music. In any case, from then on, the composer managed to combine art and politics with remarkable skill.

A neo-romantic work
Now, if the maestro's music contained irreverence, it was far from presenting the characteristics and features of the music of his more daring colleagues, say, Shostakovich. Clear examples are the ballet Gayane, from 1942 (with its famous Sabre Dance), or the ballet Spartacus (which won a Stalin Prize! in 1959). The Violin Concerto of that laborious year, without going any further, is an openly romantic, clear, expressive work, which immediately gained popularity and has never left the world stages until today.

Violin Concerto in D minor
Like all the maestro's music, folkloric (Armenian) elements permeate the work, through exuberant rhythms and melodic fragments repeated obsessively. Structurally, it does not overstep any limits, ascribing to the traditional three-movement format in a fast-slow-fast sequence. The first is in sonata form, the second is a lyrical interlude, and the third is a brilliant concluding rondo.

The work is dedicated to the Russian maestro David Oistrach, who was the soloist for its premiere on November 16, 1940.

Movements:
00:22  Allegro con fermezza
15:33  Andante sostenuto
28:58  Allegro vivace 

The rendition is by Armenian violinist Sergey Khachatryan, with the Orchestre National du Capitole de Toulouse, conducted by Tugan Sokhiev.

Bernstein, Dance at the Gym ("Mambo") / Orquesta Sinfónica Infantil de Venezuela

Throughout his career, Leonard Bernstein had to sustain a constant struggle to achieve and maintain a healthy balance between all his extended talents as a conductor, composer, pianist, classical music popularizer, and well-known media personality. It would seem that his task as a composer could have been affected by such a workload, but he managed to leave us, at his death in 1990, a huge catalog especially rich in symphonic works and works for the musical stage. Among the latter, the musical West Side Story, a 1957 Broadway production that was made into a film with spectacular success only four years later, in 1961, stands out luminously.

The Story
The play was originally called East Side Story. It loosely told the timeless story of Romeo and Juliet and was set, of course, on New York's East Side, with a large Jewish population. But soon it was felt that a story reflecting the conflicts of rival teenage gangs, with Latino immigrants playing a prominent role, was a better fit with the times. The location was changed to the Upper West Side. It was a hit. The story of young love, with a spectacular choreographic backdrop and brilliant ad-hoc music, forever earned a prominent place in the heart of American culture.

Leonard Bernstein, in 1975
(1918 - 1990)

Dance at the Gym
Its musical highlights include the romantic ballad Maria, the mixed meter song America, Something is Coming for tenor, Tonight, the "balcony scene", and others of lesser prominence. A special place is occupied by the first act number Dance at the Gym, a Cuban-inspired, highly rhythmic mambo. In the heat of the mambo, rival gangs, the Jets (white Americans) and the Sharks (Puerto Rican Americans) fire up the engines for that night's fight.
The dance has become an autonomous piece, also an essential encore when paying tribute to Latin rhythms with the means of a symphonic orchestra.

Venezuelan Children's Symphony Orchestra
The version we are featuring is by the amazingly professional Orquesta Sinfónica Infantil de Venezuela, conducted by the English maestro and conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic, Simon Rattle, during the Venezuelan orchestra's participation in the Salzburg Festival in 2013.
On that occasion, 1,400 young Venezuelan musicians attended the festival, marking a historic milestone. Eight ensembles forged in the National System of Orchestras and Youth and Children's Choirs of Venezuela, offered, in just over three weeks, fifteen concerts. The one mentioned here was one of them.
The musicians we hear here are between eight and fourteen years old. Prior to Bernstein's mambo, these little artists delivered their version of Mahler's First Symphony.

El Sistema
The Venezuelan organization, also known as El Sistema, is a music education program whose mission is to systematize the instruction and collective and individual practice of music through symphony orchestras and choirs, as instruments of social organization and human development. Its beginnings date back to 1975, inspired by the Venezuelan maestro José Antonio Abreu. Its fruits are in sight, or, if one could say, "in earshot".

But, most unfortunately –and I can't explain it– the video can only be watched on YouTube.
I'm so sorry!

Schumann, "Noveletten", for piano, No 8

 
In February 1838, in the midst of the struggle to keep the complicated courtship alive, Robert Schumann sent Clara Wieck an enthusiastic letter telling her of his latest compositional progress. By this time, nineteen-year-old Clara was touring Europe giving recitals as a concert pianist. Robert, on the other hand, had abandoned the idea of developing a similar career, and was focused on music criticism and composition:

"In the last few weeks, I have written for you a frightening number of pieces: there are cheerful ones, various stories, family scenes, a wedding... To make a long story short, kind affairs. I've given the whole play a name, Novelleten, because they call you Clara, but 'Wiecketen' doesn't quite fit."

Clara Wieck, from an 1835 lithograph

Novelleten, a curious title, but even more curious is the explanation that goes with it.
First, it may be necessary to remember that Robert Schumann loved literature, language, words, and... wordplay. Schumann explained in the same letter that the series of eight pieces, or "kind affairs," could also be considered little stories, or adventures. That is, little novels. First point. 

Second. Schumann had been very impressed by the artistry of a great soprano of that time, Clara Novello, whom he had recently heard. Naturally, Clara Wieck also knew of her. And perhaps, here we are allowed to speculate, and profusely: Clara might have been jealous of the Novello (who was also called Clara). And then, Robert adds the explanation. He is saying: they are meant for you, Clara Wieck, no doubt about it, but they cannot be called Wiecketen because it doesn't sound right.

But not only did it not sound good. Calling them Wiecketen was such a declaration of love that it would have added fuel to the fire, unleashing the wrath of Leipzig's most renowned pedagogue, the teacher Friedrich Wieck, Clara's father.

Noveletten Op 21 - No 8
It represents one of Schumann's most ambitious piano series, not only for its length but also for its technical demands. (Let us note that Franz Liszt added it to his repertoire as soon as he could).
As already mentioned, the work is made up of eight pieces extending over about 45 minutes, which were to be played as complete work. That was at least Schumann's original intention. But nowadays it is more common to take one or two pieces and present them as an encore. Usually, the opening piece, or the last of the series, is chosen.

We here present the last one, No. 8, in F sharp minor. It comprises two large sections, with a lyrical interlude connecting them. The second section includes a "quotation" to a nocturne written by Clara in 1836.

The rendition is by the German pianist Adrian Brendle.

Dittersdorf: Concerto for harp and strings

A famed composer in his time, on a par with Haydn or Mozart, the German Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf never wrote a harp concerto. But he did write five keyboard concertos. To the good fortune of hundreds of harp players worldwide, he took one of these concertos and transcribed it for harp. To this day, they thank him for it. It is their favorite. Certainly, because concertos for the instrument are not very common. Mozart made incursions into them, but with the flute sharing the leading role. There are known transcriptions of Haendel's organ works. For solo harp, stand out one by the French Boieldieu, another by Castelnuovo-Tedesco, and another by Villa-Lobos. One per musician. And Dittersdorf was the pioneer – through transcription – in the 18th century. 

 
Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf was born in Vienna in 1739, when Haydn was seven years old. By birth, he was tersely named Karl Ditters, but the twists and turns of life earned him a well-deserved title. He began his career as a violin virtuoso, and in that capacity, he strolled (that's putting it mildly) through the courts of half of Europe. In some, he served as chapel master, but unlike his contemporary Haydn, he never succeeded in gaining regular patronage in a showy court.
However, one of his lowly patrons, who once feared his departure, had to charm him with honors and titles to keep him. Thus, in 1772 Ditters became a nobleman and added the appendix "von Dittersdorf" to his surname. Despite this, he would die in poverty twenty-seven years later.

 Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf
(1739 - 1799)

A prolific composer
Dittersdorf was a prolific author of chamber music, symphonies (more than 120), and concertos, to which he added no less than 32 operas. His most creative period seems to be the one he spent with the patron prodigal in honors, to the point that he was close to entering the court of Joseph II as chapel master (hence the fears). 
In the mid-eighties (in the seventeen hundreds, of course) several of his numerous compositions became known in the most prestigious circles. In 1786 his greatest operatic success was premiered in Vienna, the singspiel "The Pharmacist and the Doctor", which was soon performed on stages all over Europe. He spent his last years writing his autobiography.

Concerto for harp and strings, in A major
The date of composition of the original keyboard concerto, the one that was transcribed for harp, is completely unknown. Even less is known about the transcription. We only know that the idea was brilliant if we remember that pianos contain in their interior a large piece that houses all their strings. That piece is called "harp". The transcription made perfect sense. One could only expect an increase in the flow of musicality, given the halo of lyricism and dreaminess that surrounds the instrument.

Movements:
In the "Vivaldian" style, a central, slow movement, is flanked by two more lively movements.

00:00  Allegro
07:22  Larghetto
16:35  Rondo - allegretto

The performance is by Spanish harpist Rosa Díaz Cotán, accompanied by the Neubrandenburger Philharmonie, conducted by the Russian conductor Daniel Stratiesvsky.

Mozart, "Dissonance Quartet", in C major

"... Mr. Joseph Haydn and the two Barons Tinti visited us on Saturday. We heard the new quartets, but only the three most recent ones, the ones he composed in addition to the other three we already have; they are indeed a little 'easier,' or 'lighter,' but splendidly composed. Mr. Haydn told me: 'I tell you before God, and give you my word of honor, that your son is the greatest composer I have ever known, personally, or in name. He has a taste and a great talent for composition...".

With these words, Leopold Mozart, visiting Vienna, related to his daughter Nannerl in February 1785 the impression that Wolfgang's last three quartets made on Haydn. Together with the three previous ones mentioned by Leopold, Mozart sent them to Haydn on September 1, 1785, offered to him in an affectionate letter in which he transferred to him "all my rights to them".

Known today as the "Haydn quartets", they were composed between 1782, the year of Mozart's arrival in Vienna, and 1785.
The Quartet in C major, popularly called "dissonance quartet", is the last of the series, completed on January 14 of the latter year and, according to Leopold, one of those heard at the evening in Haydn's presence.

Dissonance?
The moniker refers to the opening passages of the first movement and, as usual when it comes to nicknames, has nothing to do with Mozart. Nor does it have anything to do with a harmonic occurrence capable of shattering the listener's ears. The "dissonance" is heard in the first bars of the opening movement and consists of a chord progression over a "pedal note" carried by the cello. It may not have been a popular device at the time but it fully complies with the rules of eighteenth-century harmony.

Haydn's approach
But it is also said that it caused more than one tantrum in one or another distinguished aristocrat, which led him to tear the score into a thousand pieces. Also, some respectable performers returned the work to the publisher with corrections in their own handwriting. However, the very dedicatee of the six quartets, Joseph Haydn, discreetly pointed out that if that was how Mozart had written it, that was how it should be.

What Mozart sets out is simply to create a deliberate sense of ambiguity. He keeps us in the fog, in the dark, the misty, for the first few bars until the familiar C major chord appears, and the soul returns to our bodies.

Quartet No. 19 in C major, K 465, "Dissonance" - Movements
As usual for a string quartet, its movements are four, with two calm movements framed by two allegros.

00:00  Adagio - Allegro
10:00  Andante cantabile
17:30  Menuetto - Allegretto
22:44  Allegro molto