Cécile Chaminade, "Automme"

French pianist and composer Cécile Chaminade was born in Paris in 1857 to a wealthy arts-loving middle-class family. Her mother sang and played the piano, and naturally, Cécile received the first lessons from her. At an early age she showed her talent and could have entered the Paris Conservatory, but her father, although he was also a music fan, opposed such an adventure for considering it unseemly.

A prolific author
But as the family economic situation allowed it, Cécile took private classes with renowned teachers from the Paris of the time. The girl did not miss the opportunity and at 8 years old she was writing religious music. Ten years later, she would give her first concert, and at twenty she gave recitals performing her own pieces. Throughout her life, Cécile would produce nearly 400 works, including chamber music, piano pieces, an opera, and a ballet. Famous are her melodies, vocal works with piano accompaniment that would be all the rage in the Parisian salons of the time.

Cécile Chaminade (1857 - 1944)

In the U.S.A.
It will be these pieces that will give her the greatest satisfaction. With them, she became known throughout France, England and later in the United States, where she traveled in 1908 reaping overwhelming success and popularity, to the point that a firm whose activity consisted in the manufacture of soaps began to produce them packaged in glamorous boxes that carried her signature. But it is also around this time that the composer who had won Vincent d'Indy's admiration for her Orchestral Suite from 1881 began to waver and her music to be considered vulgar parlor entertainment.


It is alleged that, after her father died, Cécile should have played the role of family provider and, since her greatest successes came from parlor music, she is forced by her publishers to write music that could be sold easily and in "large volumes". Cécile began to write, then, for the consumers' taste.

The turn of the century
On the other hand, it is also true that the author failed to understand the turn of the century. At the beginning of the new century, Cécile continued composing as if romanticism was brimming with health and strength. Forty years after d'Indy's compliments, the songwriter had barely changed her style. And far from trying to adapt to the new century, she confesses to a friend in 1920:

"... I can no longer adapt to modern music, just as I cannot adapt to modern painting, architecture, literature, mentality or morality."

The rebirth of her music
The outbreak and consequences of the First World War had ended up burying Cécile's career as a concert player since her music reflected another time, a kinder one. During her last years, Cécile and her music were forgotten, although from 1994, after the fiftieth anniversary of her death, the composer has enjoyed a rebirth, by the hand of several pianists and chamber groups.

In Rina Cellini's rendition, we listen to the concerto studio "Automme", composed in 1886, performed by the Italian pianist in the privacy of her home.

Heitor Villa-Lobos, Choro No 1, for guitar

Choro ("cry" or "lament") is a Brazilian musical form that probably emerged in the mid-1870s in Rio de Janeiro. Despite its name, it is characterized by an agitated and happy rhythm, requiring great technique and instruments mastery. From the cycle of fifteen choros that the prolific Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote for several instruments, the only guitar composition is the first of all, Choro No. 1.

Like some great composers (Brahms, for example) Villa-Lobos made a living as a young man playing in taverns of his hometown, Rio de Janeiro, where he came into this world in 1887. The son of an amateur musician from whom he received his first lessons, Heitor delighted the parishioners with the cello, although, if circumstances required, he could also play the guitar, clarinet or piano.

The first steps in his musical training take place completely outside the official institutions, about which he did not have a good opinion, to the point of having once expressed: "set foot in the academy and you will change for the worse". According to some scholars, Heitor was the son of an indigenous mother, which would explain his everlasting interest in ethno-musical travel, occasions in which he delved deep into the jungle of the north-eastern states of Brazil to soak up the folk music of those territories.

Heitor Villa-Lobos (1887 - 1959)

However, upon returning from the first of his trips, he enrolled at the National Institute of Music in Rio de Janeiro. But it would be the traditional songs of the Indians of the Amazon jungle that would exert a decisive influence in the conformation of his style, completely separated from academic conventions, and rather oriented to recreate with European-Western instruments the melodies and rhythms that he heard in the Amazon.

In 1915, at the age of 28, he decided to give a concert in Rio with just music of his own authorship, which was not much appreciated due, on the one hand, to the conservatism of the audience and, on the other, to the novelty of his compositions.

However, a few years later, the Brazilian government will award him with a professional improvement scholarship in Paris. Upon his return, he was entrusted with the formation of music education in Rio de Janeiro, with which a second stage in his musical life begins, that of a pedagogue. Together, his music began to receive international recognition. The world will later be amazed by vast work. Around two thousand compositions make up his catalog, among which Choros and Bachianas Brasileiras stand out, as well as concertos for various instruments, symphonies, chamber music, ballet, pieces for piano and many others.

Talented guitarist David Russell plays for us Choro No 1.

Dvorak, Slavonic Dances - No 1 Op 46

Music with a national character sparked on in the mid-19th century after the ideas of Rousseau and other thinkers managed to awaken in European countries a movement of intellectual renewal with a marked nationalism. In the case of the Czechs and Slovaks, the consciousness of national identity was strongly reflected in them when the 1848 Prague uprising broke out against the Habsburg empire, an uprising that was later crushed like most of the same year in not a few European capitals.

An elusive language
By the time, the boy Antonin Dvorak was seven years old and, of course, he still lived in the rural town that had seen him born, a few kilometers from Prague. Five years later, his father, a trader, would send him to a nearby city to learn German, given that the nationalist efforts had not come to fruition. Antonin spent two years trying German unsuccessfully. Finally, he returned without having learned anything, however, his tutor in the language turned out to be also a music teacher, who after appreciating his amazing performance in the dance orchestra he conducted encouraged him to study music seriously.

Antonin Dvorak (1841 - 1904)

Prague and the diploma
Having overcome his father's original rejection, Antonin went to Prague in the autumn of 1857 to enroll in the city's Organ School, where he had to overcome many difficulties, precisely due to his poor command of the German language. In spite of everything, when finishing his studies, the school principal was forced to recognize, when handing him his diploma, the "brilliant talent" that the one who was going to become one of the most outstanding representatives of the Czech nationalist school, had shown.

Slavonic Dances
The year 1878 finds Dvorak turned on an acclaimed composer, encouraged by musicians of the standing of Leos Janacek and Brahms. The latter introduced him to his own editor, who after publishing his successful Moravian Duets, suggested to Antonin to compose some dances of a similar style. The result was the Slavonic Dances, opus 46, to be followed years later by those of opus 72. Both works form a cycle of sixteen dances, among which melodies based on Czech and Slavic folk dances with vernacular names predominate.

Dance No. 1 of Opus 46, a "furiant", performed by the Vienna Philharmonic, conducted by the Japanese maestro Zeiji Ozawa, shortly before going bald.

Verdi - La Traviata - "Addio del passato"

La Fenice Theater, in Venice, was the stage that hosted the premiere of the opera in three acts La Traviata, by Giuseppe Verdi, on March 6, 1853. The premiere was an absolute failure, mainly because the singer who embodied Violeta, the consumptive protagonist, was quite overweight, which provoked ridicule from the audience. In the last act, there was even laughter, because after the doctor announced that Violeta had only a few hours to live, she, audacious, continued singing, just like that.

Before the premiere, and knowing that the diva was also 38 years old, Giuseppe –for those years a celebrity in Italy– had commissioned his librettist, Francesco Piave, to notify the manager of the Theater that the role of Violeta demanded imperiously "a singer with an elegant figure who must sing passionately." The mission, unfortunately, was unsuccessful. Fortunately, the following year, with another diva in the leading role, the opera received the accolades it deserved, from the public and critics.

Addio del passato
The aria Addio del passato is sang, precisely, in the third act. Violeta is alone in her room, next to her sickbed and reads a letter that the father of her beloved Alfredo has sent her, announcing Alfredo's visit. But, as Violeta exclaims ... "e 'tardi". The aria ends with a prayer that asks God for mercy, a dramatic moment when Violeta refers to herself as "la traviata", the wayward one, an expression that ended up giving the opera its title.

The rendition is by Los Angeles Opera, 2006, with Renée Fleming in the role of Violeta. The aria begins at minute 1:40. Before, Violeta reads the letter while the orchestra quotes Violeta and Alfredo's duet from the first act, Croce e Delizia. We have chosen the rendition of the beautiful Renée because she is the only one of the current sopranos who undertake the last note of the aria with a tinny voice, which is, in the opinion of this humble narrator, the right approach.

Johann Strauss - Tritsch Tratsch Polka

Johann Strauss Sr., whose name we remember as the author of the Radetzki March, warned his many children, at an early age, that dedication to music was a very risky and unstable activity, despite the fact that Strauss Sr. was quite a celebrity in Vienna, a position he had achieved thanks to the intense work done with the orchestra that he himself had formed.

But the older son ignored the father's warning. Johann Strauss junior (1825 - 1899), was barely a teenager when he was already a capable violinist, showing, in addition, great ability to conduct orchestras. So much so, that at age 19 he had his own, rivalling his father's orchestra to win the Viennese public´s favour. He had also begun to compose, although in his first performances much of his repertoire was due to his father.

The new orchestra
After the latter died in 1849, Johann did not delay in uniting the two rival orchestras and with the new group he soon became an undisputed champion in the Viennese dance halls, which he will repeat later in the other European capitals. As he also added to his musical talent great business skills and an impressive facility for networking at the highest levels, his fame wasted no time in reaching Russia.

The ultimate success
In 1856 he was asked to offer a series of concerts in Saint Petersburg, invited by a group of businessmen from the nascent Russian bourgeoisie, interested in participating in the festivities that the aristocracy enjoyed. The tour was a success and very well paid. The lucrative contact lasted about ten years, during which period Johann Strauss Jr. amassed a considerable fortune.

"Tritsch Tratsch" polka 
It was composed shortly after returning from Russia. Much celebrated in its time, even today it is a fixed number every year at the New Year's concert in Vienna. The origin of its strange name still divides scholars.

The first video shows the Vienna Philharmonic conducted by Zubin Mehta, in an open-air performance at Heldenplatz. Very happy, and very agile, the piece lasts just under three minutes.

There is also a sung version. Following, the Vienna Boys' Choir on the occasion of the 2012 New Year's Concert.