Mozart: Piano Sonata in C major

On the morning of September 30, 1777, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart had arrived early at the palace. At ten o'clock he was standing, very elegant and erect with his arms by his sides, in a small room through which Prince Elector Maximilian III had to pass mandatorily in direction of the chapel, where the Prince went to hear mass and then go hunting, followed by his court. Mozart had been in Munich for a couple of weeks, in the company of his mother, after finally leaving the court of Salzburg and the Prince-Archbishop Colloredo, as well. The singular audience with Maximilian had been obtained thanks to a well-connected friend at the court... Mozart only had to wait for the Elector to come by.

When the Elector appeared, Wolfgang Amadeus waited until he arrived in front of him and then addressed him with these words: "Your Highness will allow me to throw myself most humbly at your feet and offer you my services." His Highness stopped, recognized Mozart and asked him if he had left Salzburg forever. Wolfgang responded affirmatively because in Salzburg there was no place for him. Then he took the opportunity to make a brief recount of his latest achievements and concluded that he was sure he had the necessary skills to serve in any court. "Although my only desire is to serve His Highness," he finished.
It was almost the last thing he said because the Elector interrupted him: "Yes, son, I know, but we do not have vacancies". Mozart assured him that he should not fail to do credit to Munich, but the Elector had already resumed his way and as he walked away he replied: "I know, I know, but there are no vacancies here for now".

The meeting was reported by Mozart to his father Leopold in full detail in an extensive letter dated the same day. It does not follow from it that Wolfgang were upset, he simply runs through the facts, although he emphasizes, in respect of the vacancies: "this he said as he walked away".
After this unfortunate mishap, Mozart travelled to Mannheim with the same result. Afterwards, to Paris. The following year he published four piano sonatas there, composed beforehand ... maybe the same afternoon when he knew that there were no vacancies for him in Munich.

Following, the Polish pianist Krystian Zimerman delights us with the first one, the Sonata in C major, K.330.

Movements:
00:00  Allegro moderato
07:00  Andante cantabile
14:18  Allegretto. At the ending of this rondo, Zimerman becomes playful and stops unexpectedly before attacking the final three chords. Nice idea, but I'd have prefered a bit more delicate chords. No offence...

Edvard Grieg: Piano concerto in A minor

Since the end of the 14th century, the city of Bergen, in Norway, had been part of the Hanseatic League, a mercantile and political group of cities and associations aimed at preserving the commercial hegemony of northern Europe. Despite leaving the association in 1763, by the mid-nineteenth century Bergen was still a prosperous city and equally privileged for its inspiring beauty.

In this stimulating city, the great Norwegian nationalist musician and author of Peer Gynt suites, the composer and pianist Edvard Grieg, was born. Better still, he was the fourth offspring of a family that enjoyed a solid prestige in the city —the father, as a successful entrepreneur and an English consul as well, and the mother as a talented pianist besides being a writer.

Edvard Grieg (1843 - 1907)

After receiving the first piano lessons from his mother, Edvard entered the Leipzig Conservatory at age 15 and at 20 he graduated as a concert pianist. He returned to Scandinavia full of illusions, with a bunch of pieces for piano and a songs book. But the cultural life of Norway was not that of central Europe. So, he realized that the possibilities of pursuing a professional career as a musician were scarce.

As expected, he tried to make a living as a private teacher. He moved to Cristianía (now Oslo), adding to his activities the management of a choral society, which allowed him to better cope the marriage with his cousin Nina, also from Bergen, in 1867. His new obligations did not prevent him from continuing to work on composition, and as early as the year following his marriage, in 1868, the first of his ten books of Lyrical Pieces for piano and the brand-new Concerto for piano in A minor were published.

Piano Concerto in A minor, opus 16
Two years later, in 1870, Edvard received an invitation from Franz Liszt to visit him in Rome. Edvard took the piano concerto with him. Reading the score a prima vista Liszt played the part of the piano and then the orchestral part. Moved by his beauty, the Hungarian maestro offered Grieg his warmest congratulations. According to an eyewitness, Edvard, facing such praise, behaved quite well and only noted that the maestro had played it a little bit quicker.

Composed at the age of 25, the concerto shows some influence from previous authors such as Schumann or Mendelssohn, or even Liszt, if we pay attention to the virtuous passages. According to the scholars, despite the fact that a specific quote to one or another folk theme is not present in the work, Grieg did succeed in instilling in the work a romantic breath clearly inspired by Scandinavian popular culture.

Movements
00:00  Allegro molto moderato - Containing the theme that has made the work popular.
14:27  Adagio - An intimate movement.
21:33  Allegro moderato molto e marcato - A majestic and brilliant ending. In my modest opinion, Grieg announces here a modern composer, who just will come into the world thirty years later: George Gershwin.

The rendition is by the master Arthur Rubinstein, accompanied by the London Symphony Orchestra conducted by André Previn.

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Mozart: Figaro - Duettino sull'aria

I have no idea to this day what those two Italian ladies were singing about and the truth is that I do not want to know, some things are better not to say. I'd like to think they were singing about something so beautiful it can't be expressed in words, and it makes your heart ache because of it. I tell you, those voices soared higher and farther than anybody in a grey place dares to dream. It was as if a beautiful bird had flapped into our drab little cage and made those walls dissolve away, and for the briefest of moments, every last man in Shawshank felt free.

These words belong to the voice-over of actor Morgan Freeman in this stupendous scene from the 1994 film, Shawshank Redemption, based on a story by Stephen King. The character recalls the magical moment that hearing the voices of those "two Italian women" meant for the inmates of Shawshank's fictional prison, after the protagonist (Tim Robinson) decides to send from the marshal's office towards the prison's courtyards that melody that could take you so high and so far away.

Mozart - The Marriage of Figaro
The music capable of performing this feat in a prison for condemned to life sentences is the duettino Canzoneta sull'aria, from act III of the Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart opera The Marriage of Figaro, completed on April 29, 1786, and released only two days after, at the Burgtheater in Vienna.

The libretto is based on Le marriage de Figaro, by Beaumarchais, which was not performed in Vienna by a clear ban from Joseph II due to its criticism of the society of those days. Therefore, the opening of the opera in Vienna was preceded by bad omens, which Leopold Mozart helped to feed by ensuring that Antonio Salieri and "his" had Mozart as the target of all their intrigues and would not hesitate in moving heaven and earth so that the premiére will result in a fiasco.

But Leopold was wrong in his predictions. Le Nozze di Figaro was released to an overwhelming success since the very day of its premiére. Soon it became famous and before long it was performed in much of Europe. Two centuries later, one of its arias serves as a backdrop for a brief moment of redemption.

In the following rendition of Duettino, the "two Italian women" who sing are Cecilia Bartoli and Renée Fleming.

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Massenet: Meditation, from "Thäis"

The composer Jules Massenet, born near Saint-Etienne, France, in 1842, remains today a bit forgotten, but he was a highly prolific author, and as far as the early twentieth century, about 30 of his operas were widely represented in the most important stages worldwide. A precocious musician –from whom it was said he could play some Beethoven sonatas when he was four–, he entered the Paris Conservatoire when he was 9, after receiving the teachings of his mother.

At age 22 he was awarded the Rome Prize. In Rome, he met Franz Liszt, who during those years was enjoying a comforting honeymoon in the company of Marie d'Agoult. The great Hungarian maestro commissioned him to give lessons to one of his most distinguished disciples because he could not cope with his many students. The distinguished disciple was named Louise Constance de Gressy and was known as "Ninon" in her inner circle. Two years later, after going back and forth with music, teacher and student ended up marrying in 1866.

Jules Massenet (1842 - 1912)

Ninon and the prima-donnas
She was an open-minded and free woman, and unlike a critic of those days was in no way afflicted by the composer's marked tendency to engage women as the protagonists of his operas. Rumour had it that the musician composed his works with an eye on the prima-donnas selected to sing the arias. Ninon didn't move a muscle, but the critic did dare to write down that the composer couldn't write an opera without a woman as the protagonist. Massenet replied writing a work putting aside his natural inclination until the time came when a mezzo-soprano had to play the part of the tenor in a performance in New York. It was Jules' fate.

Thäis opera - Meditation
Since the mid-eighties of the last century, some operas by Massenet have enjoyed a renewed splendour. One of them is Thais, composed in 1894 and based on the novel of the same title by Anatole France. The opera's heroine is, certainly, Thais, a courtesan of Alexandria, devoted to the goddess Venus, who is in danger of being converted to Christianity by a Cenobite monk.
If the work enjoys public recognition today it is largely due to the intermezzo for violin and orchestra from the second act known as "Thais Meditation", which is usually performed separately as a concert piece.

When Massenet died, on August 13, 1912, the New York Times remarked that "the last one of the great creators of melodies" had left. It is true.

The rendition is by the Dutch violinist Janine Jansen.

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Beethoven and his patrons: "Pathétique" Sonata

In Vienna, and in the rest of the world, it was the year 1799 when Ludwig van Beethoven published the Sonata Op. 13, called Pathetique. In France, on the other hand, was the year VIII of the Republic. On the 18 Brumaire of that year, Napoleon Bonaparte staged a coup d'état that ended with the Directory and established the Consulate, with him at its head.
Five years later, in 1804, the former dark Corsican officer named himself emperor under the title of Napoleon I. This fact led Beethoven to erase the Éroica Symphony's dedication offered to Bonaparte. We assume that Napoleon did not know. Neither, for sure, his brother Jérôme, who will be named King of Westphalia in 1807.

The year before the appointment of Jérôme Bonaparte, in 1806, Ludwig had tried to resume a career as an operas composer and offered his services to the imperial authorities but his request was denied. Fortunately, the new monarch of Westphalia, who despite being young and licentious, did like art, sent a letter to Beethoven in early 1808 inviting him to perform as a chapel master in his simple parochial court. The salary was not negligible, and Ludwig was just about to take on the challenge when the rumor was known and his friends learned that the maestro intended to leave Vienna.

Prince Lobkowitz (1772 - 1816)

And they hit the roof. Beethoven was leaving only to secure a fixed income. A singular contract was then offered to him. A small group of his aristocratic friends committed themselves to pay him 4,000 florins per year if he stayed in Vienna, allowed to go on tour whenever he wanted and give a concert every year at the Theater an der Wien in his exclusive benefit. Ludwig signed the contract. And Jérôme was left holding the bag.

Unfortunately, due to a variety of reasons, his friends and patrons could not fully comply with the agreement. Prince Lobkowitz (committed with 700 florins) was ruined shortly afterwards. Prince Kinski (1,800 florins) fell off a horse in 1812 and was killed (his family dismissed the contract). Only Archduke Rudolph, committed to 1,500 florins, was faithful to the agreement, paying his portion meticulously to Beethoven year after year.

Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor, Op. 13 - Sonata Pathétique
Some authors point out that the Sonata was so named by Beethoven himself and would respond to the psychic condition in which he was at the time of its publication when the first signs of his deafness begin to appear. Others postulate that it was the publisher's idea, which seems more likely.
It is dedicated to another friend and patron, Prince Lichnowsky.

Movements
Although it is structured in a classic manner: fast - slow - fast movements, the first one starts with a rather mournful introduction (a novelty for the times) that will connect soon with the Allegro.
00:00  Grave – Allegro di molto e con brio
09:33  Adagio cantabile
14:57  Rondo, allegro

Daniel Barenboim, the year 2006. The 32 sonatas cycle, StaatsOper Berlin.

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