Chopin: Scherzo No 2, Op 31

Besides being a famous piano maker, Camile Pleyel was a remarkable pianist to the point that Chopin came to say of him: "Today there is only one man who knows how to play Mozart and this is Pleyel!". They met around 1832 in Paris and their friendship lasted for a lifetime.
Aware of Chopin's genius, once Pleyel knew him provided Frédérik with not one but two pianos: a large concert piano which dominated the small salon of Frédérik's apartment in Paris, and a black piano intended for his lessons. On two occasions Camile replaced the piano with a new one. First, in 1840 and then in 1848, when Frédérik was already very ill, on the verge of death. The devotee friend went so far as to send a piano to Mallorca while Chopin spent there a short time with George Sand.

So, it is not surprising that the piano Chopin selected for miss Maria Wodzinska, back in 1835, has been from the Pleyel company.
Every day of her life Maria would play on this piano, which remained always at her side, never abandoned. She even took it to Florence, where she went to live after marrying the administrator of her lands after she failed at his first marriage. She had earlier married a certain count Joseph Skarbeck, a neighbour from the countryside who, according to the words of a Chopin biographer, turned out to be a "degenerate" and from whom Maria divorced for "non-consummation of marriage".

Scherzo No 2, Op 31, in B flat minor
Composed and published in 1837, the year one after the dissolution of the love affair with Maria, is the most popular of his four scherzi (plural of scherzo). Chopin's idea of this musical form is utterly new. It is usually alleged to be a movement from a longer piece, say, a sonata, aimed at separating, for instance, the Allegro from the Adagio, or one of these from the end of the piece.

In Italian the word means joke, and therefore, the word is also used in indications of tempo or mood with which a piece should be played. Thus, scherzando indicates that a passage should be executed rather playfully.
Chopin's scherzo is different. First of all, it is a musical piece in its own right and has little playful. If they are jokes, they are terrifying ones. Written in ternary form (theme, 2nd theme, back to the first theme), its rhythmic structure is 3/4 and its speed is presto (very fast).

Zimerman's performance is outstanding. That's why we chose it, despite the abrupt end of the video. In truth, after the last high note we hear, there is no more music. That's all. The only thing missing is the subsequent silence, the loyal and inseparable ally in the experience of listening to music.

Dear visitor, if you liked the article, we will be grateful if you share it with an easy click

Chopin: Ballade No 1 in G minor

Frédéric Chopin was certainly a person in frail health. So, because of the sort of agreement she had with him, mom Wodzinsky decided to learn a little more about Frédéric before giving her girl Maria away for marriage. What she discovered was not to her liking, or her husband's, dad Wodzinsky. Even though his everlasting good temper and cheerful mood, Frédéric suffered from an incurable disease: he was a "consumptive".

So, it was necessary to cancel the plan. But nobody spoke a clear word about it. The Wodzinskys just let things die down. Maria's letters became scarce. Those of mom Wodzinska became trivial, bearing a distant tone, to which Frédéric responded, unwillingly, "send my respects to Miss Maria". The longed-for invitation of the Wodzinskys to have Frédéric with them during the holidays, for the summer of 1837, never came to his hands.

And Chopin did not ask for explanations either. Neither Maria nor anyone else. He capitulated silently. His one and only complaint was not to respond to the last letter Maria sent him:

"I can only write these few words to thank you for the pretty cahier you sent me. I shall not say with what joy I received it. Words would not suffice. Please accept the assurance both of my sincere gratitude for it and of the lifelong attachment felt for you by all our family and particularly by your least gifted pupil and childhood friend. Adieu. Mamma sends you a tender kiss... Do not forget us.

Maria

And that was that! The last letter Chopin was to receive from Maria Wodzinska. When he realised that his hopes had come to nothing he took all the letters he had received from his fiancée and the other Wodzinskis and tied them together with a ribbon to form a bundle on which he wrote two words: Moja bieda ... My misfortune.

Ballade No. 1 in G minor
Chopin composed the first of his four ballades between the years 1835 and 1836, precisely the years in which his relationship with Maria Wodzinska went wonderfully. It was Chopin's favorite and so he told Schumann when he played it for him, after Schumann praised the performance and the work.

A piece of extreme hardship, it is, however, frequently performed in concerts for its lacerating lyricism and possibilities of brilliance for the virtuoso. More than once, some fragments of the work have become part of a movie soundtrack. The most recent occasion was in 2002 when we could listen to a curious three-minute "arrangement" in Roman Polanski's film, The Pianist. In the scene, a German officer asks the protagonist to play something on the piano in an abandoned house used as barracks by German soldiers.
In our modest opinion, the physical and emotional conditions in which the pianist actor finds himself, in the midst of war, without feeding for months, barely would have allowed him to play a traditional nursery rhyme.
The rendition is by the American pianist Krystian Zimerman. It's an irreproachable performance if we agree that some reason will he have had to take all the time he wanted before attacking the chords at the minutes 4:39 and 7:40.

Dear visitor, if you liked the article, we will be grateful if you share it, or recommend it on Google with an easy click

Chopin on vacation, 1835 – Nocturne 27-2

In the company of I Puritani's author, Vincenzo Bellini, who became his personal friend and whom he deeply admired, Frédéric Chopin travelled in July 1835 to the town of Enghien, in northern France, to "take the baths", an obligation that the disease imposed on all who suffered from tuberculosis, or anyone who was in the process of getting the condition.

A few days later he received a letter from his parents, announcing his forthcoming arrival in Karlsbad, about three days' journey away. Chopin had not seen Nicholas and his mother since he had left Warsaw for Vienna five years earlier. And it had been precisely his parents who had suggested to him not to return to Poland, after Warsaw capitulated before the advance of the Russian troops, on September 8, 1831.

The Chopin family in Karlsbad

A few hours apart, Frederic and his parents arrive in Karlsbad on the same day, August 16, 1835. It was to be three weeks of overflowing joy and emotional exaltation. Chopin Sr. scribbles a couple of notes to his daughters, who have remained in Warsaw, telling them of the joy. Frederic decides to add a postscript for his sisters:

"Our joy is inexpressible, we hug and we keep hugging each other ... We walk, we take your mother by the arm, we talk about you, we drink, we eat together, we joke, I feel full of joy..."

The stay came to an end, and his parents had to return to Warsaw. Neither they nor Frédéric knows it, but this is the final goodbye. They will not see each other again.

Shortly after the farewell, Frédéric set off to Paris. On the way, he stopped in Dresden to spend a few days with the Wodzinsky family. There, he found his childhood friends, the Wodzinsky children, and among them, the young Maria.

He spends a week with them and everything goes wonderfully. The three male siblings don't take a dim view of the fact that their former playmate, now a talented pianist and refined artist, may marry their sister Maria in the not too distant future.

It was the year of affection. In mid-October, Frédéric is back in Paris, blissful.

Nocturne Op. 27 N° 2, in D flat major
The two Nocturnes of Opus 27 were composed in 1835, in Paris, around the time of the trip to Karlsbad. The second of them is the most known and appreciated by the audiences.
In our modest opinion, this nocturne is probably the only one that can get started and maintain its simple beauty without harmonic change for four bars and then some. In the first 25 seconds, the left hand arpeggios do not leave the D-flat major chord.

The rendition, remarkable, is by the Russian pianist Yulianna Avdeeva.

Bellini: "I Puritani", famous arias

After having been on the verge of death in the spring of 1830 and after overcoming several crises, Vincenzo Bellini moved in 1831 to the beautiful town of Moltrasio to cope with his convalescence and enjoy an idyllic peace in the company of Giuditta Cantu. There, she gave him the love and care the other two Giuditta could not offer him for being in the backstage of Vincenzo's emotional scenario.

Having been brought back to life, he addressed the composition of La Sonnambula upon his return to Paris. The same year he premiered Norma, as well.
Four years later, in January 1835, what was to be his last opera, I Puritani (The Puritans) was premiered at the Teatro Italiano in Paris, the same theatre Rossini had been in charge of until the Revolution of 1830.

I Puritani's composition had begun in the summer of the previous year and passed parallel to a series of relapses in Bellini's disease. Seven months after the premiere, on September 23, 1835, Bellini's life was extinguished in a Parisian suburb, on the farm of a friend and assisted only by serfdom. He died at the age of 33 years.

I Puritani
A love melodrama in three acts, it takes place in a castle in Plymouth, England, in the midst of the struggle between the supporters of Oliver Cromwell –the Puritans–, and the royalist supporters of the House of Stuart. It all occurs in the year 1650.

Full of beautiful melodies with exquisite purity, it is at the same time a work extremely difficult for the singers. The aria Credeasi misera from act III demands the tenor –albeit optional– to sing a high note that moves away four notes beyond the upper note of his vocal range. And in A te o cara, also from the last act, the tenor is required to intone –now, imperatively– a C♯, two tones above his range.

In the following version of A te o cara, Luciano Pavarotti reaches a flawless C♯ at minute 2:50. The recording is from the year 1973. The soprano is Joan Sutherland.

Pavarotti, anew, in Credeasi misera, reaching the natural F (4:51). It seems as if a soprano had replaced him.

Dear visitor, if you liked the article, we will be very grateful if you share it, or recommend it on Google with an easy click

Bellini's three Giuditta – "Casta Diva"

The first Giuditta was married and was called Cantú. She deeply loved bel canto and to a lesser extent her husband, who she had married at the age of 16, in 1819.
Simple background information. Nevertheless, it sheds light on the fact that nine years later, for the opening of the Carlo Felice Theater, in Genoa, she fell at the feet of the young author of the work, Vincenzo Bellini, born in Catania in 1801, child prodigy at age 7 and destined to be the last representative of romantic bel canto of the nineteenth century.

Besides being clandestine, the relationship with Giuditta was certainly inspiring as well as long, passionate and stormy. Vincenzo, whose passionate ardor cannot be hinted at the delicacy of his face, had experienced at the age of 20 the greatest love affair of his life. She was Maddalena Fumaroli, a young student who aroused in him a volcanic passion. Unfortunately, as legend has it, Maddalena's enthusiasm subsided and after a while, it completely went out.

Vincenzo Bellini (1801 - 1835)

This early disenchantment would lead the composer, already mature, to choose for more than an option in love affairs. And Giuditta would have no alternative but to share.

For a few good years, Vincenzo had lived a long series of love affairs, in Milan and in Genoa. As a result of these idylls, for the premiere in 1831 of his great masterpiece, Norma, at La Scala in Milan, two other Giuditta were invited onto the stage, two old passions that Bellini had kept in a discreet background while Giuditta the first was at his side. They were the soprano Giuditta Pasta and the contralto Giuditta Grisi: a lucky coincidence which –when he fell ill in 1830– prevented him, delirious by fever, from confusing their names.

Norma - Casta Diva
In the first third of the 19th century, works set in La Galia or pre-Roman peoples became fashionable in Europe. Norma, opera set in the first century BC, is a good example. The protagonist of the same name is a druid priestess, fatally in love with a Roman consul. His Prayer to the Moon –Casta Diva– would become the most famous aria of Bellini's bel canto. Highly difficult and demanding, only a few singers in the 20th century have been able to deliver a performance at the height of the lyric spirit that the sovereign beauty of their melody entails. Notable exceptions were at the time, Maria Callas and Monserrat Caballé.

The American soprano Renée Fleming in a concert version, at the Palace of the Tsars, in St. Petersburg.

Dear visitor, if you liked the article, we will be very grateful if you share it, or recommend it on Google with an easy click