Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime

In New York, 1913, there were plenty of wealthy black people who moved to Harlem and bought a house there. Oddly enough, among them, there was a musician: the pianist Scott Joplin, composer of ragtimes and author of two operas. He was born in 1867, a good time to be born if you were black because two years before Abraham Lincoln had proclaimed the emancipation of all slaves. That was the good news because one year after the executive order, the Ku-Klux-Klan was born.

Turned into a pianist thanks to his formidable talent and the free lessons from a German teacher, Joplin decided to follow in the footsteps of Johannes Brahms and Isaac Albéniz, and at age 20 he began to make a living playing the piano in bars and taverns, as a travelling pianist through Mississippi Valley, visiting cities that usually maintained an enviable inter-racial co-existence, to the point that there is no public record of lynchings, at least in the 1890s.

Soon Joplin began to compose his own pieces, brief, syncopated, with a "ragged" rhythm (a ragged time), in the style of the popular ragtime, which although already predominating in black music, was Joplin who took it to a higher stage. His more successful composition, Maple Leaf Rag, of 1897, got to sell hundreds of thousands of copies in the USA. According to some, Joplin received a percentage that allowed him later to buy a beautiful house in St. Louis. According to others, the money earned did not exceed 600 dollars per year, for a short period.

The Sting
Perhaps today we would not remember Scott Joplin were it not for the movie The Sting, 1973, which included as part of its soundtrack the piano piece The Entertainer, composed in 1901. The film gave rise to a renewed interest in his music; in 1974, a New York Times columnist claimed: "Hey musicologists, it's time to pay attention to Joplin" ... Nothing would have made Joplin happier than an invocation like that because from the beginning he claimed for ragtime a status similar to that of the "serious" music coming from Europe. Joplin was right. A musicologist from our days clearly maintains that ragtime is "the exact equivalent, in terms of local style, of Mozart's minuets, Chopin's mazurkas or Strauss waltzes".

Maple Leaf Rag
Scott Joplin died in New York, in 1917, closer to poverty than to abundance, notwithstanding the house in Harlem.
The rendition, allegedly, is from Joplin himself: a piano roll found by chance.

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Chopin: Nocturne Op 72 / Pachmann

In the words of the great Russian-German pianist Vladimir von Pachmann, a celebrity in his time but now forgotten, there is no better exercise to develop and maintain the deftness of the fingers than milking cows.
Vladimir von Pachmann (the particle "von" was added by himself, since his brothers, he did have them, were called simply Pachmann), was born in Odesa, Ukraine, in 1848. Early signs of his talent advised his prompt entry to the Vienna Conservatory, where he studied piano, and composition with Anton Bruckner. Even though he offered his first public concert at age 21, it was not until thirteen years later that he decided to go on tour around Europe and even the United States, gaining great acclaim everywhere as an exceptional artist.

By the time, the general opinion was that he played in an exceptional way the waltzes, preludes and mazurkas from Chopin. To respond to this distinction from the audience, he paid every year a visit to the grave of the Polish composer, to whom he asked for forgiveness for the wrong notes he might have pressed in the previous season.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, already a mature man, he chose to take his special sense of humour to the stage, applauding himself in the difficult passages already overcome, stopping the execution, kissing his hands and exclaiming: Bravo, Pachmann, Bravo! or, at the beginning of the concert, apologizing to the public for not having studied enough, and then going, calmly, revising scales and arpeggios in the presence of everyone.

Cover of one of Pachman's discs,
which he recommended buying
and then destroy  (1848 - 1933)

On one occasion, at the Albert Hall in London, the room crowded, Pachmann made his entrance, took a seat, tried to settle on the stool and then began to show signs of concern because he could not get it no matter how hard he tried. After a while, he stood up and left the stage without saying a word, before an astonished audience. After an anxious wait, after a quarter of an hour, his secretary or assistant emerged from behind the scenes, advanced towards the piano, delicately taking between his fingers a cigarette paper sheet, which he arranged with equal care under one of the legs of the stool. Pachmann returned to the stage, took a seat and after approving with a satisfied expression the perfect stability of the stool, he began to play.
It goes without saying that the public adored these witticisms and, in a way, did constitute by themselves an essential element in the success of his magnificent career.

Vladimir de Pachmann was one of the first pianists to make recordings of his work, back in 1906. In some of them, he makes comments on what he is playing. We have chosen one in which he doesn't. It is the Nocturne Op. 72, posthumous, by Chopin, who with the same spirit of Pachmann once stated: "I do not like people who never laugh, they are not serious people".

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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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