By 1833, barely two years after settling in Paris, Frédéric Chopin had won over a large part of French high society, to the point that the Revue Musicale of those years would express its opinion of the Polish musician in the following terms:
"Chopin deliberately departs from the beaten path. His playing and his composition have been accepted from the beginning with such consideration, and he has acquired such a reputation that in the opinion of many this artist is an inexplicable phenomenon."
And, interestingly, all this was also inexplicable for Chopin himself. In a letter to a Polish childhood friend, he writes, in January 1833:
"I am already launched! I see myself in high society, among ambassadors, princes and ministers, and I do not know by what miracle, since I have done nothing to enter it. But they say that for me it is indispensable to rub shoulders with these people because from there, they say, comes good taste. You are possessed of great talent on the spot if you have been heard at the English or Austrian embassy. You play better if the princess of Vaudemont has protected you..."
Good times I don't know by what miracle, writes Chopin. Now that's incredible. There was nothing fatuous about Chopin, it would seem. In those years things were going well, in general. His students, at the beginning most of them amateurs, belonged to the Parisian aristocracy. This allowed him to charge 20 francs an hour for his lessons. If we think that, for example, his servant meant an outlay of 70 francs per month, the twenty francs per hour was not bad for him.
Another story, very different, is the one related to the revenues per published work. Chopin sold to his publishers his entire work for only 17,000 francs. The four scherzos published between 1835 and 1843 are part of this production.
Scherzo No. 1 opus 20 in B minor
Likely sketched in 1831 in Stuttgart while on his way to Paris from Vienna, Scherzo N°1 was published in Paris in 1835, with a dedication to his friend Thomas Albrecht, who after the failed Warsaw uprising of 1831 had rightly suggested to him not to return to Poland.
The work inaugurates the model to which Chopin will be faithful in the three subsequent scherzos. Innovative in name and form, Chopin's scherzos are neither a diversion nor part of a larger work where they are intended to separate the allegro from the adagio or one of these from the end of the piece, in the style of Mozart or Haydn. They are, in the words of pianist and conductor Alfred Cortot "...terrifying games; they are dances, but feverish, hallucinatory; they only seem to be following the rhythm of human torments," which applies, genuinely, at least to the first three scherzos.
The rendition is by the Chinese pianist Yundi Li.
Structure
Like the rest of the scherzos, the piece is ternary in nature, with an ABA structure with a coda, that is, 1st theme (00), 2nd theme (3:50), and back to the first (7:00), plus a coda (9:12). It begins with two chords in fortissimo introducing the first theme at a tremendous speed putting early pressure on the performer. The central section offers him a comfortable truce in the form of a tender lullaby, taken - something unusual for Chopin - from a popular melody ("Sleep, Jesucito, sleep"). Then the furious line will reappear. After its repetition, it will lead to a short coda that will bring the piece to a brilliant ending.
Around 1800, the "classical" sonata, understood as the one that came out of Clementi, Haydn, Mozart, or Beethoven, was not yet a concert piece in the sense of a work to be performed within the framework of a piano "recital". And for many reasons, including the fact that recitals did not exist, nor did solo performers. All this will take time. Moreover, as late as 1838, Franz Liszt, the virtuoso par excellence, was to receive a cold reception at La Scala in Milan for a program entirely devoted to Beethoven's sonatas. The public was simply not prepared, even though the maestro had been dead for eleven years.
Opus 49 Less well prepared it was, of course, at the turn of the century. But the publication of the works did bring economic benefits. It is thus understandable that, being twinned in time to the portentous Appassionata or Waldstein from 1804, Beethoven decided to publish in 1805 a pair of very simple sonatas that make up his opus 49, the so-called "easy sonatas" or also, "sonatinas". Very simply structured and technically undemanding, they were certainly written much earlier, in the previous decade, for the study and enjoyment of his pupils, who must have performed them at home, as was the custom, in the company of their parents.
Sonata No. 20 (op. 49 No. 2) in G Major Written in the key of G major, the second of the two sonatas of opus 49 is easier, and certainly the easiest of all Beethoven's sonatas. For this reason, listening to it in a live concert is only possible on the occasion of the complete master's sonatas, an opportunity offered by Daniel Barenboim in Berlin in mid-2005.
Movements The beautiful and simple sonata just eight minutes long has only two movements and, interestingly, almost no dynamic indications (only two pianissimo in the minuet), which at first glance might seem a complication but rather results in an interesting challenge for the performer who must show signs of good taste born of his own musical intuition.
00Allegro ma non troppo Exhibition, in G major: 00 - 1:22. It must be repeated. Development section, with a bit of drama: 2:43 - 3:03. Recap: 3:04.
4:32Tempo di menuetto Beethoven also gave no indication about the left hand articulation, legato or not, for the main motif (which Beethoven would reuse in his Septet opus 20). Barenboim chose legato.
Middle section: 4:48. Repetition of the theme in the upper octave: 4:55.
Separated by several episodes, the theme is repeated six times, which has inspired some performers to add, each time, one or another ornamentation. This is not the case of Barenboim, who strictly kept to Beethoven's writing.
6:33 New episode, with some brio.
7:43 The piece is heading towards its conclusion, ending very quietly with two dominant and tonic chords; delicatissimo, is the generalized approach, although Beethoven did not say a word about it.
As noted above, Beethoven again used the minuet theme in the Septet opus 20, this time with a certain rustic dance character. The piece is presented here in a rendition by the Chicago Chambers Musicians.
With all due respect, I'll stick with the piano version for the longest time.
The prolific author of operettas Jacques Offenbach, of German origin, earned his living in Paris as a virtuoso cellist before taking over in 1850, at the age of 31, the direction of the Théatre Français' orchestra, where, much to his regret, he never managed to have any of his works staged on. Five years later, he decided to set up his own company, located in a small theater that he baptized with the name of Théâtre des Bouffes-Parisiens.
Orpheus in the Underworld
In his new headquarters, Offenbach would premiere very witty short musical stage plays whose humorous texts and catchy melodies were all the rage in Paris at the time. Enthused by the success and the welcome given to his musical inventiveness – in addition to the lifting of the curious restrictions stated for his license (one act and a maximum of three performers) –, in 1858 he premiered a major work. The mythological satire Orphée aux Enfers is a delightful parody where he mocks the myth of Orpheus, poet, and singer, and his wife Eurydice, gloating in passing with Gluck's Orpheus and Eurydice.
The play is, of course, also a social satire, in which the novel character Public Opinion plays an important role. More than a century later, in a 1980s version in London, the character will draw a satirical portrait of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Jacques Offenbach (1819 - 1880)
Gods and Can-Can
But it is not only Orpheus who is ridiculed but the entire pleiad of Greek gods. Full of delicious incongruities, the play presents Jupiter, Venus, Juno, Cupid, Mars, Pluto, Diana, Mercury, Minerva, Morpheus, and the inevitable Bacchus, in situations where no reverence is granted, whose climax will come at the end of Act II when the gods must dance an irreverent Can-Can, a dance of recent invention and practiced with ardent enthusiasm in the ballrooms of the Parisian popular classes in the mid-nineteenth century.
The critics
However, the reception to the premiere of October 21, 1858, was rather mediocre, although it did manage to impress some critics. Offenbach then decided to revise it, providing it with new orchestration and expanding the original two acts to complete four acts and twelve scenes. The scathing opinion of a critic of the time – to whom the composer responded by pointing out that the texts sung by one of the characters in the play were based on his opinions – turned out to be a tremendous endorsement of the work, which after the little skirmish enjoyed 228 performances before being paused for a short time, simply because the performers needed a well-deserved rest.
Carl Binder (1816 - 1860)
A new overture
The work returned to the stage a few weeks later, and in 1860 it was successfully performed in Vienna with a new overture. To the original, rather brief one, the Austrian operetta composer Carl Binder added a series of episodes culminating in the famous Can-Can. The new overture opens with a poignant fanfare, followed by a clarinet solo introducing a tender love song by the oboe (1:44). After a brief dramatic passage (3:26), the concertino announces the first bars of a calm waltz (4:18) that later acquires a certain drama. Finally, the widely spread Can-Can kicks off with all its crazy glee at 6:59.
The rendition is by the Slovenian Youth Orchestra Gimnazija Kranj.
"The kind Prince Leopold presented me with the bridal crown and took part in our wedding feast with great pleasure, for eight days later he was to take the charming princess of Anhalt-Bernburg to the altar."
These are the words of Anna Magdalena Bach, Johann Sebastian's second wife, after the ceremony of their marriage on 21 December 1721 at Bach's house, willingly attended by 'the gracious prince'. The 'charming princess' will indeed marry the prince the following week, but she will not turn out to be as charming as Anna Magdalena assumed, in the rapture of the moment.
Leopold von Anhalt-Köthen (1694 - 1728)
Calvin versus Luther
Four years earlier Johann Sebastian had entered the provincial court of Anhalt-Köthen, ruled by Prince Leopold, who was nine years younger than Bach and a great music lover, as well as an excellent singer and player of the violin, harpsichord, and viola da gamba. Although since 1595 the official religion of the principality was Calvinist, the prince had been educated by his mother in the more orthodox Lutheran faith. Thus, the musical chapel he managed to form was almost exclusively oriented towards the production of secular music, since religious – Calvinist – music was all but excluded.
Despite Bach's deep religiosity, these circumstances were to his advantage, as they allowed him to devote his time almost exclusively to the creation of instrumental music, adding to his catalog perhaps the most famous works in the genre, born during his stay in Köthen. Highly paid, moreover, everything was going swimmingly for Johann Sebastian until the enchanting princess arrived.
Frederica Henrietta von Anhalt-Köthen 1702 - 1723
The "non-muse" girl
According to Anna Magdalena, Bach had decided to spend the rest of his days with her in Köthen. But no one expected that Leopold's cousin, Princess Frederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Bernburg, freshly converted in Frederica Henrietta of Anhalt-Köthen, would soon reveal a very unattractive side of her personality. The princess was absolutely a-musical. In Bach's own words, she was a "non-muse", indifferent if not an enemy of music and any other form of culture. As if that were not enough, she was able to attract her husband to her modus vivendi, alienating the passionate music lover Leopold from his musicians and, of course, from his kapellmeister Bach.
Johann Sebastian left this "cold atmosphere" where "there is no longer any place for a musician" in 1723, heading for Leipzig. Although perhaps the maestro was a little hasty, because poor Henrietta died that same year, barely 21. (Leopold followed shortly afterward, in 1728, a few days before his 34th birthday).
Production of the period - Concerto for two violins
As already noted, the six years Bach spent at the small court of Köthen were remarkably productive. Besides several sonatas for violin, cello and flute, as well as suites and inventions for keyboard, the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier and no less than the six Brandenburg concertos date from these years.
In terms of music for violin and orchestra, the three surviving concertos for the instrument are registered, the most famous of them written for two violins, and presented here in an immaculate rendition by soloists Arabella Steinbacher and Akiko Suwanai.
Movements
Written for two violins, strings and continuo, the work is a tributary of the Italian model in fashion, or, more precisely, of the Vivaldian model, with its three-beat fast-slow-fast structure and the usual dialogue between soloists and orchestra. Nevertheless, faced with the need to emphasize the ability of the soloists, Bach substantially reduced the contribution of the string orchestra, which is evident in the Largo, where the entire protagonism is left to the two soloists to configure one of Bach's most sublime slow movements.
00 Vivace
03:54 Largo ma non tanto
10:29 Allegro
The work has been featured as incidental music in several films. Incidentally, Woody Allen was no stranger to this trend when he incorporated the First Movement into his 1986 film, Hannah and Her Sisters.
As love conquers all, when he was thirty-six Franz Liszt slowed down his incessant and extensive touring as a piano performer at the behest of his new partner, Carolyne von Sayn-Wittgenstein, who suggested that he would do better devoting all his efforts to composition. They had met in Kyiv in 1847, on the occasion of Liszt's tour of cities in the Russian Empire. Carolyne, long distanced from her husband and in charge of their daughter, soon followed the maestro to Weimar, where Liszt resided, or rather, had to do so. From then on, Carolyne would accompany Franz for nearly forty years though they never married, and their relationship of the last years became purely epistolary.
In Weimar Five years earlier, in 1842, Franz Liszt had taken up the post of Kapellmeister of Weimar, the capital city of the Grand Duchy of Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach, signing a contract obliging him to stay in Weimar for at least three months a year, a commitment that Liszt fulfilled as he pleased. Interestingly, Grand Duke Karl Friedrich and his wife, Duchess Maria Pavlovna Romanova, were surprisingly tolerant of the maestro's informality. This is shown by a letter that Karl Alexander, son of the couple, sent to his friend Liszt reminding him of his engagement to Weimar with astonishing delicacy:
"I hope you won't be angry with me if I distract you for a moment from all your activities. I have taken up the pen only to ask you how everything is going, and especially, how everything is going with you. I have heard nothing from you for a long time, except for a few words that [a common acquaintance] passed on to me when he returned from Vienna. He told me that you work quite hard, so I am sorry not to see you, given your self-imposed task... Don't grudge me if I try to slip the name of Weimar into your plans..... The Grand Duchess and I look forward to seeing our wishes come true in December..... If the summer had already dashed my hopes of seeing you again, let the winter be the one to keep the promise..."
Yours most affectionately Karl Alexander
This situation went on until 1848 when Liszt took Carolyne and her daughter to Weimar, where they lived until 1859 in a residence that Maria Pavlovna placed at the master's disposal. The duchess, pianist, lover, and patron of the arts, was also the one who paid Franz's salary out of her own pocket. A rather low salary, to the extent that the maestro went so far as saying that he regarded the income from Weimar as "little money for cigars", which explains, to a certain extent, Liszt's scant commitment to the court.
Grand Duchess Maria Pavlona Romanova (1786 - 1859)
The virtuoso calms down
But from 1848 onwards, following Carolyne's advice, he remained for long periods in the city, devoted to composition and conducting, making known there the new works of his colleagues, or those of the recent past, and performing highly celebrated stagings of all of them. In a relatively short time the composer became the great organizer of musical life in Weimar, in the company of Carolyne and, it must also be said, by the hand of the grand duke and his duchess, both illustrious and distinguished enlightened despots, notwithstanding the paltry emoluments of their court musicians.
The production of those years
As for the orchestral corpus, it should be noted that much of Liszt's compositional work was done during this period (for which Carolyne would have to be given a pat on the back). Such important works as the Faust and Dante symphonies, twelve of his thirteen tone poems, and the Piano Concerto No. 1 were dated around this time. To all this, we can add his most celebrated piano scores: the Transcendental Études, the second volume of Années de Pélerinage, the Consolations and, of course, a fundamental work of the romantic piano: his only sonata written for the instrument, composed between 1852 and 1853, presented here in an admirable rendition by the brilliant Chinese pianist Yundi Li.
Piano Sonata in B minor Published in 1854, it was premiered in public by Franz von Büllow, Liszt's pupil and son-in-law, on January 27, 1857. It is dedicated to Robert Schumann. Despite its title, it does not present the typical sonata form of the classical-romantic period but a very personal framework of the form, a large continuous stroke of half an hour that dispenses with the traditional "exposition, development, recapitulation" scheme for a first movement. However, the following movements are marked, even if they are played continuously:
00 Lento assai - allegro energico - grandioso
12:05 Andante sostenuto
18:42 Allegro energico - andante sostenuto - lento assai
In its development, each instant is born as a consequence of the previous one to lead in the most natural way towards the following one. Thus, a theme that may sound threatening or violent, can soon mutate into a beautiful and serene melody, or vice versa. This is what happens, for example, at minute 5:50, whose idea is taken up even more quietly and melodiously in the andante sostenuto, minute 13:11, revisited in turn in the third movement at 22:46 and then tackled with resolute verve at 24:07.
The piece ends demurely, with the single note B on the low part of the keyboard.
Reception of the work
The work was generally well-received, but as it takes all sorts to make a world, the great Clara Schumann, pianist, composer and wife of the dedicatee, did not find it amusing, as she pointed out at the time: "What a noise without reason! No sound thought, everything is tangled; not even a clear harmonic chaining is to be found."
Nevertheless, almost a century later Richard Strauss wrote the following in a letter to the pianist Wilhelm Kempff: "If Liszt had only written this sonata, a gigantic work born from a single cell, it would have been enough to demonstrate the strength of his spirit".
