Chopin, "Raindrop" Prelude

 
It is customary to affirm that Chopin would have composed some of the 24 preludes op15 in a former Carthusian monastery in Valldemossa, in Mallorca, the last destination of a harrowing vacation in the company of George Sand and her children, escaping the Parisian winter, in 1838-39.

A later account by the writer seems to support this opinion. Furthermore, we would all like to believe that one evening Chopin greeted Sand and her children – on their way back to the monastery after their nocturnal explorations in the rain – with the first sketches of Prelude No. 15 in D-flat, the favorite candidate to claim the popular nickname, "Raindrop".

Sand writes: 

"... Then he would make an effort to smile and play for us melodies he had just composed [...] In those instants he would compose the most beautiful of those brief pages that he modestly called preludes...".

"His composition that night was full of the raindrops that resounded on the sounding tiles of the Charterhouse, but they had become in his imagination and in his singing tears falling from the sky, on his heart." 

Where does all this happen? In Valldemossa, naturally, since Sand refers to the Charterhouse and since the previous lodgings did not encourage touring the surroundings in the rain. Before arriving at the abandoned monastery, the travelers had tried their luck in two other lodgings.

Looking for accommodation

The unique family had arrived in Palma de Mallorca in the first days of November 1838 and rented some miserably furnished rooms in the house of a barrel maker, since at that time of year there was no hotel. Tired of the noise of the chores, they accepted the offer of a rich bourgeois to move into his property, in a small village on the outskirts of Palma. There Chopin rents an old and somewhat rickety upright piano, a pianino, where he works as best he can, until the rich bourgeois invites them to leave because so much cough is suspicious. Finally, they will end up renting some "cells" in the now famous Cartuja, about fifteen kilometers from Palma, in the mountains. The travelers moved there, pianino included, on December 15.

The Preludes, finished

A month before, that is, as soon as they arrived in Palma – and probably still at the house of the barrel maker – Chopin writes to his friend Fontana: "very soon you will receive the preludes". So, it follows that if they were not finished they were certainly very advanced.

It is January 22, 1839, when he sends them to his publisher and friend Camille Pleyel, asking for them 1,500 francs for their edition in France and England. He has finished their revision on the piano sent precisely by Pleyel, which has been removed from customs at great expense and then wearily transported to the charterhouse.

So the music full of raindrops turned into tears that Sand heard that night was probably the revised, corrected and final version of Prelude No. 15, and not a composition of recent inspiration, from only a few hours before. In any case, she was not attending a minor event.

The raindrop

Of all "those short pages that he modestly called preludes", No. 15 is one of the few that long exceed a minute or two.

It begins with a nostalgic and evocative melody in a major key, D flat, accompanied by a delicate left-hand ostinato on a single note (the raindrop?).

1:50  A somewhat terrifying progression opens up in the minor key, with the ostinato much more pronounced and now entrusted to the right hand. After a few repetitions, a variation is led by the right hand in 3:48.

4:47  Three passing notes indicate the return to light, taking up the initial motif that, after a pause (5:20), is heading to its end, the ostinato, dying away.

The pianist Suncica Randjelovic – of unknown origin – gives us here a quite right rendition in an original and novel "video clip".

Beethoven, Violin Concerto

Beethoven's cultural background at the age of seventeen was, of course, neither broad nor deep. But after his mother died in 1787, when he returned to Bonn after his first trip to Vienna – a mere sketch of the future – he had the good fortune to be hired by an intelligent and distinguished widow, Mrs Helene von Breuning, to give music lessons to her four children. The young Ludwig was welcomed in that house as another son and the distinguished lady would become his mentor and teacher, as well as a second mother. There he learned French, perfected his Latin and became acquainted with the masters of German poetry.

The dedicatee
For some time, Beethoven maintained a somewhat more than a friendly interest in one of the daughters, Eleonora, but the relationship did not come to fruition –it was an early sign that, in that area, things were going to prove difficult.
Instead, he established close ties with one of the sons, Stephan von Breuning, about his own age. After moving to Vienna and resuming his friendship with Beethoven – settled there from 1793 – Stephan would become one of those closest to the musician for many years. Ludwig will respond to the affection in 1806 with the dedication of the Concerto for violin and orchestra.

Works of the period
Only four years earlier, Beethoven had written a letter addressed to his two brothers – the famous Heiligenstadt Testament –, where he announced the idea of ending his life, overwhelmed by his progressive deafness. Fortunately, this was not the case  – he did not send the letter either – and two years later the master would add to the universal repertoire no more and no less than the Eroica Symphony, which would be followed by the Triple Concerto, the Appassionata Sonata and the Piano Concerto No. 4, to name some of the most relevant works of that period.

Helene von Breuning

Concerto for Violin and Orchestra in D major, opus 61

To this prolific period belongs the composition of the Concerto for violin and orchestra, the only one written by Beethoven for this instrument. It appears that he did not have a special predilection for it, however, he accepted the commission made by his young friend Franz Clement, at that time concertmaster and conductor of the Vienna Opera.

The work was to be premiered at a benefit performance for Clement on December 23, 1806, at the Theater an der Wien, so the extremely tight deadlines forced Beethoven to work against time, delivering the score very shortly before the evening, leaving Clement almost no time to get ready.

The rescue
According to the story, Clement, annoyed, dared to play a piece of his own between the first and second movements, so that it would be clear what he was capable of. The work was not as successful as expected and was not performed again until 1844, with the twelve-year-old violinist Joseph Joachim as the soloist, conducted by Felix Mendelssohn, who rescued it from undeserved oblivion seventeen years after Beethoven's death.

The rendition is by Itzhak Perlman, accompanied by the Berlin Philharmonic, conducted by Daniel Barenboim.

The movements, described, below the video.

Let's note that there is also a version for piano, requested by the pianist and composer Muzio Clementi, who is still present today for his great pedagogical contribution. But it is performed very occasionally because it does not reach the brilliance achieved by the sonority of the violin in the original work, which has become one of the most important works in the repertoire for solo violin.

Movements:

0:36  Allegro ma non troppo.  This is the longest of the three movements, lasting almost half of the concerto, about 25 minutes, which at the time was considered extreme. Four timpani beats introduce the movement. After a long exposition by the orchestra, the solo violin enters at 3:53 with the first theme that the orchestra has already foreshadowed. The second theme is introduced by bassoon and clarinet at 6:00, which the violin immediately takes over to develop, at 6:09. It is then taken up by the orchestra while the soloist indulges in flourishes. An extended development of the two themes finally gives way to a long cadenza (20:22 to 23:26) that leads into the second, peaceful theme. A vigorous crescendo of the orchestra announces the finale.

25:35  Larghetto (in the video, after an exasperating wait for the audience to stop coughing) The movement, of great musicality, is based on a lyrical melody probably taken from some Russian theme, according to specialists. Without interruption, it connects to the third movement, in:

35:23  Rondo  The theme is introduced by the solo violin. Beethoven did not write any cadenzas for this final movement (we know he was short of time), so this is the opportunity for the soloist to shine with his own inventiveness and technical ability (41:57), which is brilliantly done by the Israeli-American virtuoso Itzhak Perlman. When all appears to be over, the orchestra falls silent and allows the soloist to rehearse a rhythmic echo of the theme (44:53). Two spirited tutti chords mark the end.

Beethoven, Für Elise? or Für Therese?

 
The very popular bagatelle (a short, unpretentious piece) Für Elise was published almost 40 years after Beethoven's death.  In 1865, his disciple Ludwig Nohl made public a copy he had supposedly found among the belongings of Therese Malfatti, one of the many girls to whom Beethoven proposed marriage with adverse results.

Therese Malfatti at the piano surrounded by her family, circa 1810

Therese?
The disciple claimed to have seen the original manuscript as well, although he never showed it. And even though he had found the copy at Therese's house, he published it under the title "Für Elise" because that is what he thought he read in Beethoven's scribbles. Always according to Nohl, the copy was dated 1810, precisely the time when Ludwig had made his daring proposal. Between that and the legend, there was only one step: the famous bagatelle was dedicated to Therese Malfati.

Elizabeth?
But if so, why title it "Für Elise" and not "Für Therese." A proposal of the time: Nohl simply misread, relying on the fact that there was no known Elisa with whom Beethoven had been intimate. However, recent studies indicate that, also around 1810, the maestro had some correspondence with a certain Elizabeth Röckel, daughter of a singer friend of Beethoven's, of prominent participation in the opera Fidelio. The piece is called Für Elise in German, and German Elizabeths are usually called Elise.

Elizabeth Röckel, in 1814

Is the matter settled?
Not so much, because is quite relevant to ask what the manuscript (according to Nohl) was doing in Therese's house. The only certainty, so far, is that only an incomplete rendition of the work is preserved (in the Beethoven-Haus in Bonn), a sketch on a sheet of paper that Beethoven used to write down his ideas; it dates from 1810 and, as I understand it, is untitled.

Multiple versions for a bagatelle
However, this ambiguous origin was never an obstacle for the piano bagatelle Für Elise to become the quintessence of the popularization of classical music, whether in jazz or heavy rock renditions, including cell phone ringtones. From the other side of the coin, the arrangements for piano and orchestra are also noted.

"Für Elise", the drawing
Beethoven was forty years old when he composed the piece, and he was not shy about working on a simple theme to which he added a couple of variations. The main idea leads into a sub-theme at 0:31, only to return at 0:40. Everything is repeated. The first variation, somewhat more agile, appears at 1:21, to return to the main motif at 1:46. Despite the simplicity of the piece, a recognizable Beethoven emerges in the second variation, at 2:24. At 3:05 the piece resumes its calm and initial motif to head toward a quiet ending.

The rendition (and arrangement for orchestra) is by Bulgarian pianist Georgii Cherkin.

Ligeti, Kubrick, musica ricercatta

 
When, in 1968, the Hungarian composer György Ligeti learned that the filmmaker Stanley Kubrick had included a considerable part of his music to the soundtrack of the movie 2001 Space Odyssey without his approval, he did not make a mess as we would have done, normally, in the Western world. By then an Austrian citizen, Ligeti simply sued Kubrick for damages and demanded a financial compensation amounting to the sum of one dollar.

Worldwide audience
Coming from a Jewish family that had been under the rigours of Nazism – from which only his mother was spared –, and himself a child of a totalitarian society, Ligeti believed that Kubrick had only incurred in the indelicacy of not requesting his authorization, although, obviously, the filmmaker had not paid the corresponding rights either. But it was a wise way of dealing with the situation, for soon after the release of 2001... he saw how his music travelled around the world, thanks precisely to that sloppy action.

György Ligeti (1923 - 2006)

Add and go
Kubrick lost the litigation and paid the dollar, we suppose, because in two of his next five films he turned again to Ligeti to create the soundtrack for the films The Shining, from 1980, and finally, for Eyes Wide Shut, his last release, from 1999. We suppose, too, that this time he did pay the fee.

Timbre and "sonorism"
Ligeti's music – at least from the 1960s onwards – is marked by a virtual abandonment of harmony, rhythm and melody (no more, no less), in order to focus on timbre and thereby achieve what he called the making of a "sound mass". A fitting expression of this idea is his work Atmospheres, part of which was used in 2001..., along with his Requiem (accompanying the discovery of the monolith) and the a cappella work for 16 voices, Lux Aeterna. The madness of the central character in The Shining gets full support with the orchestral work, Lontano, from 1967.

Musica ricercata 
It's not easy at all humming Ligeti's work, by the way. There are no tunes here. Although, you can try to recognize a couple of notes in some of the movements that make up his piano work, from 1953, Musica Ricercata, a set of eleven pieces censored by the Hungarian authorities of its time as "decadent" (Ricercare = search; instrumental composition typical of the 16th and 17th centuries). The first movement is built on two notes, the second on three, and so on until the last, built on twelve notes.

Second movement = mesto, rigido e cerimoniale
It is the one that Kubrick incorporated in Eyes Wide Shut. The three notes that the composer uses are: E-sharp, F-sharp and G. But G makes its entrance almost in the middle of the piece, at 1:43, attacked vigorously, and then accelerating to a "tremolo" as the left hand takes up the initial motif of the two notes in octaves (2:04). The movement ends by pressing only the G note, rittardando, until it fades out.

It may first appear somewhat monotonous. But it achieves an atmosphere. As Ligeti would claim,  that's what it's all about.

The rendering is by the Spanish pianist, Vicente Uñón.

Ponchielli, Gioconda - Dance of the Hours

 
Around 1880, the chapel composer position in Italy was on the verge of disappearing. The newly born Italian state had been dismantling the ecclesiastical musical organizations and transferring their traditional teaching duties to the new secular conservatories. However, as is typical of the history of some of humanity's transformations, both institutions behaved wisely enough to coexist in perfect harmony for a time.

It is therefore not surprising that in 1881 the composer Amilcare Ponchielli served as maestro di capella of the cathedral of Bergamo and also as professor of composition at the Milan Conservatory, where Giacomo Puccini and Pietro Mascagni were among his pupils.

La Gioconda, a lyrical drama
There is no doubt that the pupils surpassed the master. Amilcare Ponchielli, even with ten operas to his credit, is remembered today for his only work still performed on the world's stages, the opera La Gioconda, a lyric drama in four acts set to a libretto based on a play in prose by Victor Hugo. The play was enthusiastically received for its premiere at La Scala in Milan in 1876, and became a dazzling success in 1880 at the same theater, after numerous revisions.

Amilcare Ponchielli (1834 - 1886)

All in all, the work was the last breath of a musical universe in retreat before the advance of the style that would become known as verismo, which would do away with mythological heroes and fantastic settings, and which would be led precisely by his pupils Mascagni and Puccini.

The additional element

It's true that the audience of 1880 was already beginning to get tired of some plays that were not exempt from a certain vulgarity. Therefore, it was necessary to add some extra element to the development of the story, making the actors and singers participate as an audience in some spectacle that occurred, with more or less artifice, in the "reality level" of the story told.

Dance of the Hours
To this need responds the inclusion of a ballet at the end of the third act of La Gioconda, the popular Dance of the Hours, which Walt Disney's film Fantasia was responsible for making it even more famous, even though – or precisely because of it – it was a parody that features as dancers hippos, ostriches, lizards and elephants in tutus.

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In the performance presented here, there are no elephants or hippopotamuses, but quite the opposite. At the Gran Teatro Liceu in Barcelona, the sensual Italian dancer Letizia Giuliani is accompanied by the Spanish dancer Angel Corella, both in charge of the leading roles. The melodies that have become popular, clearly recognizable by every listener, can be heard at minutes 1:55 and 8:11.
(Sadly, Youtube has catalogued the video as for adults (!). So, it can only be watched there (!). Anyway, it's soooooo worth it.)