Wagner, Tristan and Isolde, Prelude

Mathilde Wesendonk (1828 - 1902)

After finishing the reading of Schopenhauer´s work The World as Will and Representation, the German composer Richard Wagner began to write the first verses of his musical drama Tristan und Isolde, close to the thought of the Danzig philosopher, whom he took from then on as his inspirational guide and teacher. The work was based on an ancient German legend, whose leitmotiv were love, destiny, betrayal and death, which fit perfectly with the spirit of the romantic period.

Shortly after, on April 1857, his patron and advisor, the banker Otto Wesendonk, rented a simple house to Wagner, in Zurich, on the land he had prepared to build the mansion planned to inhabit in the company of his beautiful young woman Mathilde, thirteen years younger than him and a poet in addition.

In September of that year, Richard welcomed, as guests, the orchestra conductor Hans von Büllow and his wife Cosima, daughter of Franz Liszt. The Wesendonks, already moved to their splendid love nest, were frequent guests, especially Mathilde, who did spend a long time alone because Otto had to travel frequently. Thus, the evenings that used to take place in the little house, curiously called Assyl, counted on the presence – if we talk about the ladies – of Minna, Richard's wife, Cosima and Mathilde.

Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883)

One warm summer afternoon in 1858, Richard read the poems, already quite advanced, that would make up the musical drama script in three acts Tristan and Isolde, before the three ladies. While as sketches, Minna already knew them; Cosima was not indifferent to Richard's words but decided to procrastinate on it (she will marry Richard in 1866); Mathilde, on the other hand, was shuddered from head to toe by the musician's verses, causing instant crush on her. The story of Isolde and Tristan seemed to recall theirs.

Mystical and subjugating was the passion born between them. Mathilde's visits to Assyl became more frequent and also the exchange of letters in veiled language. But it all went to hell when Minna intercepted a letter from Mathilde, a letter in which language had already lost the veil. As a result, the Wesendonks set out on a trip to Italy, and Minna abandonned Wagner, who was forced to continue working in Tristan. Months later, he left Assyl and left for Venice, then to Lucerne, where he finished the work in August 1859. Tristan had died, also Isolde. Richard had not, he was alive, but alone.

Prelude and Liebestod ... and Melancholia 
"Melancholia", the film by Danish director Lars von Trier, was presented at the 2011 Cannes festival. It's a drama containing a curious mix of elements of science fiction and reflections on life and the destiny of human beings, which ends with the total destruction of the Earth by the collision with another planet.
The film begins with a kind of overture, about ten minutes, filmed in slow motion, without dialogues or ambient sound, in which, along with scenes of space and the impending collision, the themes and characters are presented in a dream sequence that von Trier will explore later. The complete sequence is accompanied by a reduced orchestral version that links the prelude to the third act and the final aria of Wagner's work.

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Agustín Barrios - Mangoré: "La Catedral"

Although much of his life was spent in the twentieth century, the music of the Paraguayan guitarist and composer Agustín Pío Barrios (1885 - 1944) is identified with the musical period known as "late romanticism". Fairly "late", in my opinion. But, romantic indeed, an important part of his work shows a great influence from the folk music of South and Central America.

Born in Misiones, Paraguay, Agustín Pío Barrios took his first steps on music from his mother, who served as a teacher at the local girls' school. His seven brothers used to play some instrument and together formed the so-called Orquesta Barrios, of which he was part until the age of 13 when a compatriot, a renowned musician, introduced him to the repertoire of the classical guitar. Thus he came to know the work of Tárrega and Fernando Sor, among others.

In 1907 he made his first solo performance and the following year he was already known throughout Paraguay. Then the tours of South America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile and others) would come and, as a reward, the composer will be known as "the guitar magician". In the 1930s he will travel to Europe, thus achieving universal recognition as an excellent composer and guitarist. In 1932 he appeared in Brazil as Nitsuga (Agustin upside down) Mangoré (the name of a Guarani chieftain), the guitar Paganini, which led to him later being known worldwide as Agustín Barrios - Mangoré.

The work La Catedral is considered to be his pinnacle work. Composed around 1912, and according to some inspired by the religious music of Bach, it is made up of three movements, despite its brief extension: Prelude Saudade, Andante Religioso (1:26), and Allegro Solemne (3:17), the latter demanding a great technique. The work has become an unavoidable component of the universal repertoire for classical guitar.

The rendition is by the beautiful and superb Croatian guitarist Ana Vidovic.

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Chopin as a child / "Barcarolle"

Nicolas Chopin, Frédéric's father, left France to try his luck in Poland when he was sixteen. After working for a while in a small tobacco factory run by a countryman, he managed to establish himself, by then an adult, as a teacher or tutor at the home of aristocratic Polish families. This is how he got to work for the Skarbek family, settled in the village of Zelasowa Wola, 60 km from Warsaw.

The mother, Justine
Mrs Skarbek, by those years a widow, was assisted in the house maintenance by a poor relative, an unaffected and charming twenty-year-old girl, with blond hair and blue eyes who wore a certain aura of distinction, despite her aquiline nose, which she will bequeath to one of her children. Yes indeed, she will be Frédéric's mother, because after four years, Justina and Nicolas, who saw each other every day during dinner and ran into each other through the halls and corners of the whole house, finally got married.

Ludwika and Izabella Chopin
Four children will be born from the marriage. Frédéric, the only male, is the second. His older sister, Ludwika, will be a kind of preceptor of little Chopin, in addition to being the one who started him on the path of music. Soon they will play four hands to their parents' delight. Ludwika is his affectionate advisor, almost his friend; long after, she will visit him in Paris and will be with his brother at the time of the final farewell.
The second sister, Izabella, is also a good musician but does not exceed Ludwika's brightness. Both, and also Frédéric, of course, have developed their piano skills guided by Justina, the mother, a talented amateur.

Emilia Chopin
The younger sister, Emilia, has decided to be a poet. At eleven, along with his brother, she writes a comedy in verse to celebrate the father's birthday. Later, Frédéric will join Ludwika to write children's books as a duo. Musicians, talkative, cheerful, friendly, adorable, with a talent for almost everything. So are the Chopin children. The one who shows the greatest talents is, no doubt, little Frédéric. Interestingly, he has an amazing facility for drawing and caricatures, and an unmatched gift for imitating characters. With these extra-musical skills, years later he will wow and impress those attending the artistic evenings in the Paris salons, where he has been invited, at first, to play the piano.

Barcarolle opus 60
The folk songs that Venetian gondoliers sing while they walk their passengers through the city canals are known as barcarolles. The tradition is ancient and it is said that the gondoliers did it so as not to listen to what their distinguished passengers, all noble people, would talk during the small journey.

A good number of classic authors approached the composition of barcarolles, after making a rigorous visit to Italy, and certainly Venice. Apart from the very popular one by Jacques Offenbach, from The Tales of Hoffmann (from which even Elvis Presley released his own version, a "rock" one, in the movie GI Blues), the most famous "classic" barcarolle is that of Frédéric Chopin, composed in 1845, during summer in Nohant, the summer residence of his companion of that time, the writer Georges Sand.

In a brief analysis that Maurice Ravel did on this little masterpiece, he said: "Chopin did in it everything that, by negligence, his masters only expressed imperfectly."

The impeccable rendition is by the Taiwanese pianist Ching-Yun Hu.

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Mendelssohn: Violin Concerto, op 64

On the whole, it can be said that Felix Mendelssohn did quite well in his life, a very unusual issue among his romantic colleagues. The bad news is that it was very short. He only lived until age 38.
Born in Hamburg in 1809, a year before Chopin and two before Liszt, Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy came from a family of bankers. His father was involved until 1811 in the banking business, running one of the most prestigious credit institutions in Europe. His mother, likewise, was the daughter of a prominent Berlin banker.

Mendelssohn: musician and painter
Felix was given his first piano lessons from his mother and soon showed great musical talent. When he turned eleven, his father Abraham ended up convincing himself of his son's extraordinary dispositions for music and, against all odds, coming from a person linked to business, he wrote the following sentence in a family letter: "Music will be for him perhaps a trade. "
And, so that the artistic formation of the son was complete, Abraham made Felix take lessons at the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin. Throughout his life, Felix would paint extraordinarily well, showing in his watercolours a prodigious technique.

Felix Mendelssohn-Bartholdy (1809 - 1847)

The sabbatical years
Parallel to music and painting lessons, Mendelssohn pursues studies of aesthetics, geography and history of the French Revolution at the University of Berlin. When he was 20 years old (four years ago he had already composed the overture to A Midsummer Night's Dream) his father gave him a sort of a sabbatical year but multiplied by three. Indeed, for three years, Mendelssohn was able to travel all over Europe, with no other purpose than to compose and getting acquainted with the music of other countries.
In addition, if he wanted to be back in Berlin, he could stay in the family's palace, in whose gardens stood a pavilion that could accommodate about one hundred attendees, and where the young Felix premiered several of his works, and where at one time he received a visit by Chopin, or by the poet Heine. (Despite having met in Paris, it is unlikely that Liszt had been one of the frequent guests at the Mendelssohn house, as Felix did not like him, to the point of asserting that Liszt had "many fingers but little brain").

Marriage

Cécile Jeanrenaud (1817 - 1853)

In full enjoyment of this generous life, the summer of 1836 Felix was fortunate to meet the beautiful Cécile Jeanrenaud, aged tender 17 years. It was love at first sight for both of them, without crises or setbacks of any kind, unlike their contemporaries Liszt, Chopin, Wagner or Berlioz, and, needless to say, poor Schumann. They got married the following year and, by all accounts, they were very happy. They had five children.

But as happiness does not last forever, in May 1847 his sister Fanny died suddenly from a stroke. This pain caused in turn a stroke in Felix, from which he partially recovered although the sequels led him to death six months later. The beautiful Cécile did not endure the pain. She outlived him for only six years.

Violin Concerto in E minor, Op 64
The idea of ​​this concerto arose during the summer of 1838. He wrote to his friend the violinist Ferdinand David: "I should like to write a violin concerto for you next winter. One in E minor runs through my head, the beginning of which gives me no peace." But the project did not get off the ground until 1844, during family vacations in an idyllic place near Frankfurt when, in Felix's words, he only intended "... to eat and sleep, without tails, without a piano, without business cards, without carriages or jobs, but with donkeys, field flowers, ruled paper, sketchbook, Cécile and children."
But the concerto running through his head was mightier.
The premiere took place on March 13, 1845, at the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, conducted by a Mendelssohn's fellow as the composer was too weak to do so.

Movements
The piece is in three movements, which follow on from each other without a pause:
00:00  Allegro molto appassionato (the movement that has made it famous)
13:30  Andante
20:52  Allegreto non troppo - allegro molto vivace...

The rendition is by the American violinist Hilary Hahn, accompanied by the Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, conducted by the Estonian-born director Paavo Järvi.

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Liszt - Paganini, "La Campanella"

Notable must have been her surprise when Carolyne de Saint-Cricq, a fourteen-year-old aristocrat girl, saw her piano teacher, Franz Liszt, enter the music room, barely a year older than her. The preteen, famous pianist, was returning from a tour of England, France and Switzerland. He had just lost his father, which forced him to become the provider of the short family – he and his mother – giving lessons to aristocratic girls and upper bourgeoisie ladies, in Paris in 1826.

As expected, Carolyne, the daughter of a minister of Carlos X, fell in love quickly with his young teacher, and the young teacher with her. It was love "at first lesson" but with no successful outcome. Anticipating fatal consequences, the minister ended the lessons and the music. Franz fell into depression but then managed to get away from his first – and perhaps unique – love setback. Soon, he was able to continue his successful tours throughout Europe, reaping applause everywhere. Carolyne got married, meanwhile.

Listening to Paganini
Shortly before finding true love in the person of Marie d'Agoult, the young teacher had the opportunity to attend in 1832 a concert presented by the Italian violinist Niccolo Paganini at the Paris Opera. For Franz, the experience was a first-rate one, and he decided to work intensely on his instrument with resolute determination to achieve the amazing excellence shown by the Italian devil with the violin.

Listening to Chopin
Fortunately, within a few months, Liszt went to the Pleyel Hall to listen to a colleague, another young man who was only one year older than him, a Polish, Frédérik Chopin. There he realized that the mere display of the mastery of an instrument was not enough, and that it was also possible to invent an intimate world on the keyboard of a piano. And he understood that if Paganini composed for his violin, he should aim to write for the piano.

Six Études
In the "Six Grandes Études de Paganini", from 1838, Franz Liszt fully fulfilled that purpose. In the Étude No. 3, nicknamed La Campanella, based on a theme from Paganini's Second Violin Concerto, Liszt dared to respond to the diabolic writing of the Italian with a work that, beyond mere virtuosity, constitutes an overwhelming achievement for the intrinsic value of the resulting music.

The rendition is by the Ukrainian pianist Valentina Lisitsa.

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