Chopin: Revolutionary Étude

After leaving Warsaw for Paris in 1830, Chopin stopped for a short time in Breslau, Dresden, Vienna, Munich, and then Stuttgart, where he arrived in 1831. There he learned of the Warsaw occupation by the tsarist troops and, according to some biographers, this news would have led him to compose, enraged, several piano pieces, among which the Étude N° 12, Opus 10, consequently called "Revolutionary Étude", stands out as one of the most energetic.

Before Chopin (and before Liszt, as well) the musical form Étude was linked to the practice of the instrument so that the student could approach other works at a later stage. Expressiveness was not relevant to them, much less the enjoyment of the sounds. On the other hand, if Chopin's Études have acquired their own personality in the history of music, it is not only due to their technical challenges (the pedagogical contribution) but also because Chopin took them as a pretext to create masterpieces, precisely because the inventiveness needed to its construction was going hand in hand with a marvellous musical inspiration.

Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)

Chopin's Études, for the twelve major and minor scales, are contained in two collections of 12 études each, to which are added three others, posthumous. The first of these collections is the Opus 10 and was dedicated to Franz Liszt. The second is Opus 25 and, as the gentleman he was, Frédérick dedicated them to Liszt's mistress in those years, Countess Marie d'Agoult. Composed in Warsaw, probably Vienna, Stuttgart, and then Paris, were finally published in this latter city, between 1832 and 1837.


Étude Opus 10 N° 12, "Revolutionary"
The main technical difficulty demanded by the étude N ° 12 of Opus 10, "Revolutionary", is the handling of fast scales and very large arpeggios entrusted to the left hand, destined to sweep practically the entire keyboard, providing the entire piece with a character that we could call "resounding", condition surprisingly valid also for the diminuendo passages, in which case the challenge is even greater.

However, it should also be noted that, despite the enormous demand, the hand, an indispensable tool in this occupation, remains "comfortable" for a large part of the piece – and large hands will be more comfortable than small hands – that is, the hand (the left hand) is almost always very close to its natural disposition, thus diminishing the possibilities of fatigue and stiffness because the hand repeats structures that suit it, even when it must work at great speed.

In the early Twentieth Century, Polish pianist and composer Leopold Godowsky (1870 - 1938) surprised the musical world with some Études on Chopin's Études, composed perhaps from a somewhat daring consideration that the original demands were not many. In this work, Godowsky addresses the Chopin études and asks the left hand to do what is written for the right and vice versa, or creates versions of them for one hand, or put together two or three études in one.

The video shows the Russian pianist Boris Berezovsky playing the Revolutionary Étude in the traditional way to continue undeterred with the amazing version of Godowsky for the left hand alone. (A nice comment on Youtube about the video points out: "If I was Boris, I would be sipping some tea on my right hand while I play this. That would be Epic.")

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Schubert: String Quintet in C major

The last Schubertiad attended by Franz Schubert took place on the eve of his birthday, January 30, 1828. He was 31 years old and was to live for less than ten months.
Just three years ago, he had sent to Göethe, for the second time, a small collection of his poems set to music and dedicated to the poet. The German bard, also for the second time, turned a deaf ear.
Those were years in which the Viennese society was captivated by the entertaining and joyful operas of the talented Rossini, making the comprehension and understanding of this more complex composer, uphill. Those were the circumstances in Vienna, the composer's hometown, so, little could be expected from the German poet, who apparently was not only deaf but also discourteous.

But not all aspects were negative in those years. Some publishers thought that the 28-year-old composer's works could contain an unsuspected treasure. Little by little, they began to publish their compositions, although without stopping exploiting him, because they paid misery for them. But he was becoming known, and by 1827 he was already a musician who was quoted in foreign newspapers and magazines. There were no economic benefits but "honorary": that same year he was appointed a member of the Vienna Philharmonic Society. And in March of 1828, it was possible to organize a whole evening entirely programmed with music by Schubert, the first one and the last. The concert was a success popularly and financially and allowed Franz to pay off a large part of his debts.

Schubert and a couple of friends

What if Göethe had lent a little hand? The recognition, yes, could, or should have, arrived earlier. On Schubert death, his possessions were some clothes and an amazing number of scores, whose total value was estimated at 63 florins. The funeral and the doctor's bill cost around 250. The short, plump and nearsighted Franz Schubert, apart from being unfortunate in love, departed from this world indebted.

String Quintet in C major - Adagio
One of the greatest works of chamber music of all time was completed only weeks before his death. The work was premiered twenty-two years later, in 1850. And publication occurred  ... three years after the premiere.
The work is written for two violins, one viola and unusually, two cellos (the usual thing was to double the violas, not the cellos). It is in four movements, and the complete work lasts approximately one hour.
We present here the second movement, the Adagio. It is in ternary form (A-B-A). A melody developed in the simplest mode imaginable but of extraordinary beauty starts the movement. The central section is intensely turbulent: it breaks suddenly into the tranquility in the distant key of F minor. Towards the end, the initial idea is picked up again, ending in a climate of even more intense lyricism. The work as a whole serves as a tantalizing reminder of what might have been, had Schubert been granted more time to create and innovate.

The rendition is by the chamber group conducted by the Japanese-born German violinist Susanna Yoko Henkel.

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Grieg: Peer Gynt - Anitra's Dance

Before fully entering into the criticism of the society of his time –existing in the works An enemy of the people and the thousand and one times enacted A Doll's House–, the Norwegian playwright Henrik Ibsen devised in 1867 a work in verse that nonetheless its fantastic character already contained misgivings about the character and psychology of his fellow countrymen. The work commented, Peer Gynt, was originally intended to be read and not enacted but the success of its publication prompted the author to turn it into a play in five acts.

This turnaround made it essential include musical passages to fill the idle times between scene changes: preludes, dances, songs and some choral numbers, as well as "musical backgrounds" to accompany certain scenes or for creating atmospheres. For accomplish this, he resorted to the help of a countryman, the composer Edvard Grieg, an ascending figure in Norway and also in Europe after the overwhelming success of his Piano Concerto.

Edvard Grieg, en 1888
(1843 - 1907)

At the request of Ibsen, Grieg composed around twenty pieces of music. The work was released in February of 1876. The audience found the music that attractive that it did not take long for the score to take on a life of its own. Discarding some of the original pieces or fusing them with one another, Grieg ended up erecting two orchestral suites made up of four pieces each.

Due to its simple beauty, Anitra's Dance, from the Suite N° 1, is an inevitable part of the student orchestras repertoire. The little work depicts an episode in which the protagonist, Peer Gynt, is seduced by the beautiful Anitra by means of a somewhat risqué dance in order to relieve him of his riches, ill-gotten, for sure, but that is another story.

The rendition is by the Antonio Vivaldi Chamber Orchestra, in a concert on the occasion of Valentine's Day, in 2010.

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Gershwin: "Rhapsody in blue"

In the mid-1960s, long before reggaeton, in Santiago de Chile the piano sheet music was purchased at La Casa Amarilla (The Yellow House), a music publishing house and musical instruments salesroom. If you were struck by a piece that you did not know, you had only to hand the score to the house's pianist and he would turn it into music instantly, so making easy your decision. La Casa Amarilla still exists but the pianist no longer.

Quite further north of Santiago, in New York, and several years before, in 1914, the pianist and composer George Gershwin, at the age of sixteen, would play that same role in one of the many music establishments in a New York neighbourhood specialized in light music. But since New York is not Santiago, Gershwin was also in charge of giving small private recitals of fashionable music in the establishment halls.

A son of Russian immigrants and self-taught until he was twelve, George soon understood that he was also able to compose and in 1916 he published his first song. In 1923, the future composer of the opera Porgy and Bess and the symphonic work An American in Paris, offered a "hybrid" concert: classical music and jazz, following a tendency from those years searching for a somewhat diffuse concept: the symphonic jazz. The concert was attended by a famous band director of the time who, firmly believing that the young Gershwin could become the creator of American music of the "future", a combination of African-American colour and the reputable classical music, encouraged him to compose a Concerto.

George Gershwin (1898 - 1937)

George accepted, but aware of his limitations in terms of musical forms, chose for the free form of a rhapsody. In February of the following year, at the end of a concert that included music by Elgar and Schönberg, he ventured to perform the solo part of his Rhapsody in blue for piano and jazz band. It was a huge success, although there were criticisms of some serious critics who considered it naive and superficial. Others, less serious, found it funny, spontaneous, melodious and sensual.
Various transcriptions have been made of this music, for solo piano, for two pianos, and for piano and symphony orchestra.

We are offering here a version for piano and orchestra, by the New York Philharmonic with Leonard Berstein conducting from the piano, in a 1976 recording. From minute 10:41 the slow and suggestive melody is heard – " Tchaikovskian ", according to some –, that has made the work famous and the closest thing to the blues of the whole piece. The glissando in charge of the clarinet that initiates the piece arose as a joke in a rehearsal. Gershwin incorporated it later in the score.

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E. Lecuona: "La comparsa", for piano

Apparently, prodigy children are everywhere. People who in 1909 attended the Testar cinema in Havana could see that the musician accompanying the silent movies of the time was a 14-year-old boy. The boy, who was missing only four years to obtain his diploma as a piano performer at the National Conservatory of Havana, including a gold medal, was called Ernesto Lecuona.

A son of a Canarian journalist and Cuban mother, to alleviate the household economy after the untimely death of his father, the future composer was forced to work in the cinema at an early age. In 1907, at age 12, he had already participated with a musical group in the intermissions, between a film and another, as was the custom.

Lecuona, an author of songs, seems to be the obligatory review. Perhaps due to the overwhelming success of the song Siempre en mi corazón (Always in my heart), the main tune of the same name movie, from 1942, an epoch of profuse Lecuona involvement as a composer for the Hollywood cinema. And, certainly, there are also Siboney, Maria la O, Malagueña and many others.

Ernesto Lecuona (1895 - 1963)

But its musical production, of approximately 600 pieces, includes diverse suites for piano, five ballets, music for theater and cinema, pieces for children, and even an opera. And as if that were not enough, as a performer he showed an exceptional talent for playing the music of the European classics and romantics.

Later, Lecuona will gradually move away from this universe and end up paying homage to Afro-Cuban music. That music was almost completely marginalised in Cuban society at the beginning of the twentieth century but finally, it managed to gain access to the concert halls thanks in large part to the sustained effort of the maestro Lecuona.

La Comparsa is one of his most popular compositions and still valid. His first public performance was given in 1912 so it can be assumed that it was composed before the age of 17. Though originally just a song, countless versions of it have been made, starting with Lecuona own version for solo piano.

In this opportunity, we listen to it in a very tasty rendition, as well as free, for piano and orchestra. At the piano, the Cuban maestro Frank Fernández accompanied by the Youth Symphony Orchestra, in Caracas, Venezuela.

Ernesto Lecuona died in Santa Cruz de Tenerife in 1963.

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